BIOLOGY 

LIBRARY 

G 


BY 
J.  ARTHUR  THOMSON,  M.A.,  LL.D. 


Darwinism  and  Human  Life.    Illustrated. 

Introduction  to  Science.     Home  University 
Library. 

The  Biology  of  the  Seasons.     Illustrated. 

The  Wonder   of   Life.     With  100  Illustra- 
tions in  color. 

Secrets  of  Animal  Life. 

The  System  of  Animate  Nature.     (Gifford 
Lectures. ) 

Natural  History  Studies. 
The  Control  of  Life. 


THE 
CONTROL  OF  LIFE 


BY 


J.  ARTHUR  THOMSON,  M.A.,  LL.D. 

Regius  Professor  of  Natural  History  in  the  Uni- 
versity of   Aberdeen 


NEW   YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1921 


BIOLOGY 

r!> 

6 


COPYRIGHT,  1921 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


gbt  «utnn  &  gotten   Company 

BOOK      MANUFACTURERS 
KAHWAY  NEW     JERSEY 


PREFACE. 

THIS  book  is  a  vindication  of  the  thesis  that  Science 
is  for  Life.  Its  central  idea  is  that  a  new  freedom 
may  be  reached  by  bringing  more  brains,  as  well  as 
more  good-will,  to  bear  on  "  the  relief  of  man's 
estate  "  and  the  enlargement  of  everyday  life.  By  the 
application  of  Science  to  practical  problems  Man  can 
get  rid  of  many  hindrances  that  slow  his  progress — 
which,  in  its  higher  reaches,  means  the  fuller  realisa- 
tion of  the  True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good.  Our 
hope  is  that  the  book  may  make  it  more  vividly  clear 
that  increased  biological  knowledge  implies  increased 
possibilities  of  controlling  life.  The  biological  control 
of  life  is  indeed  to  the  theory  of  organic  evolution  as 
works  to  faith.  But  what  is  here  illustrated  with  par- 
ticular reference  to  Biology  holds  true  also  in  regard 
to  the  other  sciences. 

The  hopefulness  of  our  outlook  and  the  contribution 
the  book  makes  to  a  theory  of  progress  may  seem  to 
some  to  be  sanguine;  we  submit,  however,  that  our 
position  is  that  of  a  sound  scientific  meliorism.  In  any 
case,  the  book  contains  a  readily  intelligible  introduc- 
tion to  a  study  of  questions  which  must  be  faced  by 


vi  PREFACE 

every  educated  citizen — questions  in  regard  to  our 
natural  inheritance,  the  correlation  of  '  nature '  and 
*  nurture  ',  the  general  biology  of  health,  the  individual 
life-history,  the  changes  in  population,  and  the  fac- 
tors in  man's  evolution. 

J.  ARTHUR  THOMSON. 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ABERDEEN, 
January,  1921. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE 3 

§  i.  What  is  meant  by  Science — §  2.  Science  and  Hu- 
man Life— §3.  The  Dangers  of  Short-sighted  Utili- 
tarianism— §4.  The  Higher  Services  of  Science  to 
Human  Welfare— §  5.  The  Larger  Ends. 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE  ....      27 

§i.  The  Idea  of  Evolution— §  2.  The  Idea  of  Con- 
trolling Life— -§3.  Illustrations  of  the  Contrql  of  Life 
— §  4.  Faith  in  Science. 

CHAPTER  III. 

OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE 44 

§  i.  The  Three  Fates— §  2.  The  Elements  of  pur  In- 
heritance— §3.  Fundamental  Facts  of  Heredity — §4. 
Recent  Advances  in  the  Study  of  Heredity— §  5.  Dif- 
ferent Modes  of  Inheritance— §  6.  Statistical  Study  of 
Heredity— §  7.  Inheritance  and  Disease. 

CHAPTER  IF. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  NURTURE      .....      86 

§  i.  Nature  and  Nurture — §  2.  Nurture  and  Develop- 
ment— §  3.  Individually  Acquired  Modifications  and 
their  Transmissibility — §4.  Nurture  of  the  Higher 
Faculties— §  5.  The  Other  Side  of  Heredity. 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH 134 

§i.  The  Meaning  of  Health— §2.  The  Body  as  En- 
gine— and  More — §  3.  The  Nervous  System — §  4.  The 
Regulative  System— §  5.  What  is  Disease? 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VI. 

PAGE 

THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE 173 

§i.  Different  Forms  of  Life-Curve— §  2.  The  Ante- 
natal Life — §3.  Infancy  and  its  Fragility — §4.  The 
Individual's  Recapitulation — §  5.  Childhood :  its  Play- 
ing and  Schooling — §  6.  Adolescence :  its  Adventures 
and  Dangers— §  7.  Falling  in  Love,  or  rather  Rising — 
§8.  Married  Life  and  Parental  Affection— §9.  The 
Difficult  Age-^-§  10.  The  Problem  of  Growing  Old,  the 
Art  of  Remaining  Young. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

POPULATION  PROBLEMS 209 

§  i.  The  Need  for  Caution— §  2.  The  Biological  Al- 
ternatives as  regards  Population:  the  Spawning  Solu- 
tion and  Economised  Reproduction — §  3.  Spencer's 
Generalisation  as  to  Individuation  and  Genesis — §  4. 
Rise  and  Fall  in  Population — §  5.  The  Persistent  In- 
crease of  the  Population  of  the  Globe — §6.  Causes  of 
the  Falling  Birth-Rate— §  7.  Good  and  Evil  in  the  De- 
cline of  the  Birth-Rate. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN 245 

§  i.  Cosmosphere,  Biosphere,  and  Sociosphere — §  2. 
Control  in  the  Domain  of  Things — §3.  Control  in  the 
Realm  of  Organisms — §  4.  Control  of  Disease — §  5. 
Control  of  Body  and  Mind— §  6.  The  Threefold  Ideals 
of  Eugenics,  Eutechnics,  and  Eutopias — §  7.  Selection 
in  Mankind — §8.  The  Dilemma  of  Civilisation — §9. 
The  Social  Heritage. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION 283 

§  i.  What  is  meant  by  Progress — §  2.  Progress  a  Fact 
— §3.  A  Contribution  to  a  Critique  of  Progress — §4. 
Towards  a  New  Stoicism — §  5.  Looking  Forwards. 

INDEX  301 


THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 


CHAPTER  I. 
SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE. 

§  i.  What  Is  Meant  by  Science. — §  2.  Science  and  Human 
Life. — §  3.  The  Dangers  of  Short-sighted  Utilitarianism. 
— §  4.  The  Higher  Services  of  Science  to  Human  Wel- 
fare.—§  5.  The  Larger  Ends. 

OUR  age  is  marked  by  two  very  strong  tendencies — 
the  democratic  and  the  scientific.  Some  key-words  of 
the  democratic  tendency  are  '  liberation  ',  '  solidarity  ', 
1  participation  ',  '  equal  opportunities  '.  Some  key- 
words of  the  scientific  tendency  are  '  accuracy  ',  t  veri- 
fication ',  '  systematisation  \  '  control '.  Secure  prog- 
ress in  the  years  ahead  will  in  great  part  depend  on 
increased  interaction  between  these  two  powerful 
tendencies, — that  democratic  movements  become  bet- 
ter informed  and  more  thoroughly  imbued  with  the 
scientific  spirit,  and  that  scientific  interests  be  increas- 
ingly socialised  and  directed  towards  the  relief  of 
man's  estate. 

§  i.   What  Is  Meant  by  Science. 

Ever  since  man  began  to  find  himself,  he  has  been 
applying  knowledge  to  the  securing  of  wealth  and 

3 


'£:;0':;i. THE. -CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

health;  the  foundations  of  agriculture  and  medicine, 
for  instance,  are  pre-historic;  and  there  is  no  clear 
line  to  be  drawn  between  the  empirical  and  the 
scientific  stage.  But  what  is  distinctively  modern  is 
the  idea  of  an  all-round  utilisation  of  Science  as  a 
basis  for  action,  the  determined  attempt  to  substitute 
the  rational  for  the  empirical,  the  growing  habit  of 
focussing  scientific  inquiry  on  practical  puzzles,  the 
recognition  of  scientific  investigation  as  an  agency 
likely  to  produce  well-being  as  well  as  enlightenment. 
Our  present  thesis  is,  that  Science  can  do  far  more 
for  human  life  than  it  has  hitherto  been  allowed  to 
do  or  asked  to  do. 

In  illustrating  this  thesis  we  do  not  take  any  narrow 
view  of  Science.  For  we  mean  by  Science — all  sys- 
tematised,  verifiable,  and  communicable  knowledge, 
reached  by  reflection  on  the  impersonal  data  of  obser- 
vation and  experiment.  Science  is  precise,  co-ordinated 
knowledge  about  all  of  reality  that  can  be  studied  by 
recognised  methods  of  measurement,  registration,  and 
experiment.  One  of  the  best  definitions  is  that  given 
by  Dr.  Trotter  in  his  Instincts  of  the  Herd — "  a  body 
of  knowledge  derived  from  experience  of  its  material, 
and  co-ordinated  so  that  it  shall  be  useful  in  fore- 
casting and,  if  possible,  directing  the  future  behaviour 
of  that  material ". 

But  only  omniscience  could  draw  a  circle  including 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  5 

all  scientific  knowledge  and  excluding  all  else.  Dif- 
ferent orders  of  facts  are  unequally  amenable  to 
measurement,  experiment,  and  other  scientific  methods. 
For  this  reason,  and  for  historical  reasons,  the  Sciences 
differ  greatly  in  their  degree  of  development,  in  the 
exactness  of  formulation  which  they  have  received, 
and  in  the  possibilities  that  they  afford  for  prediction. 
Contrast  gravitational  astronomy — wellnigh  perfect — 
with  the  young  science  of  animal  behaviour;  you  can 
predict  with  almost  perfect  precision  the  return  of  a 
comet,  but  not  how  the  cat  will  jump.  Yet  the  student 
of  animal  behaviour  may  be  as  '  scientific '  as  his  col- 
leagues in  the  astronomical  observatory  or  in  the 
chemical  laboratory. 

It  is  unfortunately  necessary  to  point  out  that  a 
theory  which  appeals  to  the  data  of  science  is  not 
necessarily  '  scientific '.  This  is  a  common  but 
fallacious  use  of  the  word.  To  the  theory  that  all 
human  progress  depends  on  the  conflict  of  races,  or 
to  the  theory  that  all  dreams  have  a  sexual  origin,  one 
may  give  more  or  less  consideration,  but  to  call  either 
scientific  means  merely  that  it  is  not  fanciful. 

§  2.   Science  and  Human  Life. 

What  can  Science  do  for  Life?  The  answer  is 
to  be  found  partly  at  every  turn  in  our'moden}  day, 
and  partly  in  the  history  of  those  applications  of 


6  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

Science  which  have  changed,  or  are  changing,  the 
occupations  and  environment  of  mankind.  But  when 
we  reflect  on  what  has  been  achieved  and  how  it  has 
been  brought  about,  and  when  we  consider  some  hints 
of  incipient  new  controls,  we  see  that  the  question  is 
unanswerable.  We  cannot  tell  what  Science  may  not 
do  for  Life.  Before  1896  it  would  not  have  seemed 
rash  to  say:  "  This  at  least  will  remain  beyond  our 
powers,  no  one  will  ever  discern  the  contents  of  a 
closed  wooden  box."  But  now  they  find  the  pearl  in 
the  unopened  oyster  and  locate  the  bullet  buried  in 
the  bone. 

It  was  a  fine  epitaph  that  they  put  on  the  tomb 
of  Fraunhofer,  the  discoverer  of  spectroscopy — "  Ap- 
proximavit  Sidera";  but  in  how  many  other  ways 
has  modern  science  enabled  man  to  annihilate  distance. 
He  has  made  the  ether  carry  his  messages;  he  can 
hear  from  afar  the  cry  of  the  ship  in  distress  upon  the 
sea;  he  can  make  Niagara  drive  mills  and  illumine 
cities  hundreds  of  miles  from  the  Falls.  Science  has 
harnessed  electricity  to  man's  chariot,  and  added  the 
depths  of  the  sea  and  the  heights  of  the  air  to  his 
navigable  kingdom.  Already  Science  is  making  bread 
out  of  the  thin  air,  working  miracles  in  the  conquest 
of  plague  and  pestilence,  and  controlling  the  inher- 
itance of  generations  unborn. 

The  late  Sir  William  Ramsay  said:  "  Real  gain,  real 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  7 

progress  consists  in  learning  how  better  to  employ 
energy — how  better  to  effect  its  transformation."  It 
is  an  often  told  story  how  Science  has  enabled  man 
to  tap  one  reservoir  of  energy  after  another,  and  to  do 
so  with  increasing  economy.  The  less  wasteful 
utilisation  of  our  coal  supplies  is  certain  to  be  one 
of  the  great  changes  of  the  near  future  (1921).  The 
raw  material  must  be  used  more  carefully;  gas  and 
coke  must  be  made  more  economically;  the  by- 
products must  be  appreciated  even  more  keenly  than 
now;  perhaps  there  will  be  more  power-production  in 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  mines;  these  and  other 
problems  are  being  discussed  by  experts.  We  are 
almost  sure  to  discover  new  and  better  ways  of  har- 
nessing winds  and  tides.  Experts  speak  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  unlocking  the  imprisoned  sub-atomic  ener- 
gies of  which  radio-active  substances  have  given  us 
so  impressive  a  glimpse,  and  hint  that  it  is  not  an 
absurdity  to  think  of  drawing  from  the  supply  of 
energy  represented  by  the  stresses  of  the  ether.  In 
any  case  this  is  certain,  that  in  the  domain  of  things 
Science  is  giving  man  an  increasing  control  of  power. 
It  is  progress,  we  suppose,  to  make  in  considerable 
quantity  and  economically  what  was  previously  pro- 
curable in  small  quantity  and  wastefully.  Thus  the 
Tyrian  purple  of  the  sea-snail  is  replaced  by  a  similar 
product  of  coal-tar.  But  far  more  important  is  getting 


8  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

nitric  acid  and  ammonia  by  tapping  the  free  nitrogen 
of  the  atmosphere.  In  1892  Sir  William  Crookes 
showed  that  a  strong  electric  current  passed  through 
air  produced  nitrous  and  nitric  acids,  and  this  was  the 
beginning  of  the  fixation  of  nitrogen  which  has  been 
developed  in  many  countries  on  a  practical  scale  for 
the  production  of  explosives  on  the  one  hand  and  fer- 
tilisers on  the  other.  In  Lord  Rhondda's  words,  "  If 
we  are  to  feed  ourselves,  we  must  begin  by  securing 
a  continual  provision  of  the  fixed  nitrogen  which  is 
necessary  to  feed  our  best  food,  and  which  we  can 
begin  to  make  for  ourselves,  whenever  we  please." 
(See  3rd  edition  [1918]  of  The  Wheat  Problem  by 
Sir  William  Crookes.)  How  life-saving  has  been  the 
abstract  science  which  has  led  to  the  new  metallurgy, 
to  the  understanding,  for  instance,  of  what  happens 
when  parts  of  a  machine  suffer  from  '  fatigue-stress/ 
and  to  a  discovery  of  how  this  may  be  prevented. 
Many  illuminating  instances  will  be  found  in  the 
essays  entitled  Science  and  the  Nation  (Cambridge 
University  Press,  1917). 

In  the  realm  of  organisms,  as  in  the  domain  of 
things,  Science  is  giving  man  more  control.  Thus  the 
progress  of  the  science  of  heredity  has  supplied  levers 
which  can  be  used  with  great  practical  effect  in  regard 
to  cereals,  root-crops,  and  fruits,  cattle,  sheep,  and 
poultry.  To  the  interesting  problems  of  forestry, 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  9 

which  are  of  great  importance  from  the  occupational 
as  well  as  from  the  economic  side,  the  methods  of 
genetics  and  bionomics  have  only  begun  to  be  applied. 
Professor  Oliver  and  others  have  shown  how  '  waste 
places/  like  sandy  heaths,  pit-heads,  and  salt  marshes, 
may  be  made  profitable.  (See  The  Exploitation  of 
Plants.  Edited  by  F.  W.  Oliver.  London,  1918.) 
And  there  are  many  other  points  d'appui.  It  may  be 
that  some  discovery  in  biochemistry  will  change  the 
whole  economic  problem  of  food-supply. 

In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  illustrate  other  aspects 
of  the  rapidly  growing  biological  control  of  life.  Here 
it  must  suffice  to  mention  the  conquest  of  many 
microbic  or  parasitic  diseases,  from  malaria  to  bil- 
harziasis;  the  development  of  serum  therapeutics,  so 
important  in  connection  with  diphtheria  and  tetanus; 
the  utilisation  of  the  secretions  of  the  ductless  glands 
of  other  organisms  to  supplement  deficiencies  in  our 
own;  and  the  beginning  of  the  application  of  the 
young  science  of  Psycho-biology  to  very  subtle  prob- 
lems of  life. 

§  3.    The  Dangers  of  Short-sighted  Utilitarianism. 

To  apply  the  results  of  scientific  inquiry  to  the 
amelioration  of  human  life  is  certainly  the  trend  of 
evolution,  and  to  focus  scientific  intelligence  on  prac- 
tical puzzles  is  obviously  common  sense.  Yet  there 


io  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

are  many  who  shake  their  heads  over  making  a  defi- 
nite policy  of  '  Science  for  Life  '.    Their  objections  are, 

(1)  that  the  advances  that  count  in  the  long  run  are 
made  by  Pure  Science,  pursued  for  its  own  sake;  and 

(2)  that   preoccupation    with,    and    glorification    of 
practically  useful  results  suggests,  especially  to  the 
careless,   an    entirely   wrong    view   of    the    aim   of 
Science. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  chief  end  of  Science  is 
Understanding.  Its  aim  is  intellectual, — to  describe 
things  and  occurrences,  co-existences  and  sequences, 
as  completely  as  possible,  as  simply  as  possible,  as 
consistently  as  possible.  This  endeavour  leads  to  the 
discovery  of  order,  uniformity,  inter-relations,  and 
chains  of  sequence  which  are  systematised  in  formulae 
and  laws.  "  If  this,  then  that,"  is  what  Science  is 
always  saying.  It  aims  at  thought-models,  common 
denominators,  unifications;  it  seeks  to  reduce  the  ob- 
scure, the  discrepant,  the  anomalous.  Now,  if  the 
end  of  Science  be  Understanding,  Science  for  light 
rather  than  for  life,  is  there  not  danger  in  bringing 
the  criterion  of  practical  value  into  prominence? 
Will  not  the  democratisation  of  Science  tend  to  stop 
the  unfolding  of  its  finest  flowers?  A  picture  painted 
to  tell  a  story  is  apt  to  be  bad  art;  a  novel  written  as 
a  piece  of  propagandism  is  likely  to  be  bad  literature; 
and  so,  they  say,  scientific  investigation  pursued  with 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  n 

a  directly  utilitarian  end  in  view  is  apt  to  defeat 
itself. 

Now,  a  reference  to  the  history  of  Science  makes  it 
quite  plain  that  the  kind  of  questioning  which  is 
rewarded  in  the  first  instance  by  illumination  is 
also  the  surest  and  sometimes  the  shortest  road  to 
increased  practical  mastery.  The  quiet  thinkers  in  the 
scientific  cloisters  are  often,  like  the  poets,  "  the 
makers  and  shakers  of  the  world ".  Prof.  A.  N. 
Whitehead  remarks:  "  It  is  no  paradox  to  say  that  in 
our  most  theoretical  moods  we  may  be  nearest  to  our 
most  practical  applications."  It  is  admirably  shown 
in  Sir  R.  A.  Gregory's  Discovery,  that  wireless 
telegraphy,  the  telephone,  aeroplanes,  radium,  anti- 
septics, antitoxins,  spectrum  analysis,  and  X-rays  were 
all  discovered  in  the  course  of  purely  scientific  and 
very  theoretical  investigation.  Lord  Kelvin,  pre- 
eminent alike  in  theoretical  insight  and  in  practical 
applications,  once  said:  "No  great  law  in  Natural 
Philosophy  has  ever  been  discovered  for  its  practical 
applications,  but  the  instances  are  innumerable  of 
investigations  apparently  quite  useless,  in  this  narrow 
sense  of  the  word,  which  have  led  to  the  most  valuable 
results." 

For  eighteen  centuries  many  great  minds  gave  their 
lives  to  studying  conic  sections.  Had  this  devotion 
any  reward  beyond  the  thrill  of  enlightenment?  Not 


12  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

to  speak  of  projectiles,  the  answer  is  given  by  our 
great  bridges,  by  the  curves  of  our  ships,  by  the  rules 
of  navigation,  and  by  much  more  besides.  It  was  not 
for  practical  purposes  that  William  Smith  tramped 
over  England  exploring  the  strata,  yet  how  much  of 
the  exploitation  of  mineral  resources  of  many  a  coun- 
try has  had  its  origin  in  Smith's  maps  and  their  suc- 
cessors. Over  and  over  again,  both  in  peace  and  war, 
the  stratigraphical  geologist  has  saved  a  difficult  situa- 
tion. Far-reaching  recent  improvements  in  metallurgy 
originated,  though  no  one  saw  the  seed  sown,  in  1861, 
when  H.  C.  Sorby  in  Sheffield  began  out  of  sheer 
mquisitiveness  to  cut  microscopic  sections  of  rocks  and 
meteorites.  When  Prof.  William  Thomson  published, 
in  1853,  in  the  Philosophical  Magazine,  a  stiff  bit  of 
mathematical  analysis,  which  laid  the  foundation  of 
the  study  of  electric  oscillations,  there  can  have  been 
few  who  saw  in  it  one  of  the  steps  towards  wireless 
telegraphy.  Or  perhaps  we  should  go  further  back 
still  to  Lagrange,  who  led  on  to  Thomson  and  Clerk 
Maxwell,  as  these  to  Hertz.  As  Prof.  E.  W.  Hobson 
writes  (Science  and  the  Nation,  p.  92),  Lagrange's 
work  in  purely  abstract  mathematics  "  was  an  essential 
link  in  a  chain  of  investigation  which  led,  on  the 
practical  side,  to  the  invention  of  wireless  telegraphy  ". 
Pasteur's  researches  form  an  intellectual  chain  of 
which  the  first  link  was  a  study  of  molecular  dis- 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  13 

symmetry  and  the  crystalline  forms  of  tartrates. 
What  would  the  Democratic  Council's  Committee  on 
Biological  Research  have  said  of  Pasteur's  first  link? 
Or  of  Darwin's  earliest  discovery  on  the  larvae  of  the 
sea-mat?  At  the  French  Revolution  they  executed 
Lavoisier,  the  founder  of  modern  chemistry,  saying, 
'"  The  Republic  has  no  need  of  Savants." 

The  modern  treatment  of  cretinism  and  the  like  was 
founded  on  a  very  technical  inquiry  into  the  function 
of  the  ductless  glands,  and  the  modern  treatment  of 
diphtheria  and  plague  on  a  very  theoretical  inquiry 
into  the  meaning  of  immunity.  A  few  years  ago 
zoologists  were  laughed  at,  who  solemnly  counted  the 
hairs  on  the  backs  of  flies  and  quarrelled  over  the 
specific  distinctions  between  one  gnat  and  another. 
And  could  there  be  for  able-minded  men  a  waste  of 
time  more  scandalous  than  cutting  sections  of  the 
entrails  of  ticks?  Yet  it  has  been  this  sort  of  knowl- 
edge of  flies  and  gnats  and  ticks  that  has  made  it  pos- 
sible to  open  up  tropical  Africa  and  complete  the 
Panama  Canal. 

The  historical  facts  should  be  weighed,  for  there  is 
danger  ahead.  With  a  hastily  educated  democracy, 
naturally  eager  for  immediate  results,  with  a  conven- 
tionally educated  parliament,  knowing  little  of  what 
Science  means,  and  not  humble  enough  to  learn,  there 
will  be  a  tendency  to  starve  '  Pure  Science ',  while  so- 


i4  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

called  l  Applied  Science  '  is  subsidised.  But  as  Huxley 
always  insisted,  "  What  people  call  Applied  Science  is 
nothing  but  the  application  of  Pure  Science  to  par- 
ticular classes  of  problems."  And  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  advance  of  Pure  Science  depends  on  the 
continued  activity  of  a  kind  of  mind  which  has  never 
been  common,  which  seeks  after  knowledge  with  more 
than  a  passing  love,  which  has  vision  as  well  as 
patience.  The  lesson  of  history  is  clear:  if  any  really 
big  changes  are  to  come  about,  it  is  likely  to  be 
through  discoveries  in  Pure  Science,  and  the  priceless 
people  are  those  who  have  brains  enough  to  be  dis- 
coverers of  Pure  Science.  There  is,  of  course,  nothing 
but  good  in  applying  the  results  and  methods  of 
Science  to  immediate  difficulties  and  limitations;  the 
danger  is  of  a  false  valuation,  of  ignoring  the  lesson 
of  history  that,  even  for  practical  ends,  it  is  theory 
that  pays,  and  of  diverting  the  real  discoverer  from 
the  quest  of  understanding.  No  question  arises  as 
to  the  role  of  inventors  who  devise  some  useful  appli- 
cation of  a  new  knowledge  which  the  discoverers  have 
established,  but  the  danger  is  letting  inventors  over- 
shadow discoverers.  A  thousand  people  know  of 
Marconi,  for  one  who  knows  on  whose  shoulders  the 
Italian  inventor  nimbly  and  with  perfect  fairness 
perched  himself.  Ten  thousand  .people  know  of 
Edison,  for  one  who  has  heard  of  Willard  Gibbs — 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  15 

one  of  the  greatest  physicists  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. 

What,  then,  shall  we  say?  (i)  The  first-class 
makers  of  first-class  new  knowledge  are  so  few  and 
far  between  that  nothing  too  much  can  be  done  for 
them.  It  is  a  tragedy  that  a  man  with  a  first-class 
mind  should  be  hampered  as  regards  his  scientific 
pursuits  by  having  only  a  third-class  purse.  Onjthe 
master-minds  the  question  of  utility  should  never  be 
allowed  to  intrude.  (2)  As  to  the  second-class  and 
third-class  makers  of  second-class  and  third-class  new 
knowledge,  some  democratisation  or  socialisation  of 
their  activities  might  be  useful,  especially  if  it  came 
about  voluntarily,  not  coercively.  We  cannot  believe 
that  every  investment  of  scientific  time  and  ingenuity 
is  equally  likely  to  yield  interest  affecting  man's 
estate.  Some  is  only  quantitatively,  not  qualitatively 
new.  It  would  be  no  tyranny  to  ask  that  an  inves- 
tigator, faced  by  equally  attractive  theoretical  prob- 
lems, should  give  the  preference  to  those  holding  some 
promise  of  benefit  to  mankind.  The  democratic  check 
on  luxurious  specialism  would  not  be  unjust  which 
pressed  a  consideration  of  Spencer's  epigram — 
"  Science  is  for  life,  not  life  for  Science."  (3)  It 
is  possible  to  make  a  bogey  of  the  danger  of  socialising 
scientific  inquiry.  One  may  be  too  jealous  for  the 
safety  of  the  ark,  it  is  not  so  capsisable.  Bacon  was 


1 6  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

right:  "  This  is  that  which  will  indeed  dignify  and 
exalt  knowledge  if  contemplation  and  action  be  more 
nearly  and  strictly  conjoined  and  united  together  than 
they  have  been."  No  small  part  of  Science,  even  of 
geometry  and  astronomy,  sprang  from  tackling  prac- 
tical problems,  and  this  may  be  expected  to  continue. 
In  his  interesting  Janus  and  Vesta  (1916),  Mr. 
Benchara  Branford  writes:  "  Science  ultimately 
sprang,  and  is  continually  springing  from  the  desires 
and  efforts  of  men  to  increase  their  skill  in  their  occu- 
pations by  understanding  the  eternal  principles  that 
underlie  all  dealings  of  man  with  Nature  and  of  man 
with  his  fellowmen."  There  is  an  unceasing  reciprocal 
relationship:  occupations  produce  and  stimulate 
science;  science  improves  and  creates  occupations. 
Even  the  great  discoverer  is  not  likely  to  impair  his 
genius  by  being  something  of  a  citizen;  and  to  those 
of  humbler  rank  it  gives  a  spice  to  work  to  know  that 
it  may  perhaps  be  of  practical  use  to  mankind.  Some 
people  speak  as  if  it  was  almost  a  taint  in  a  piece  of 
work  to  have  obvious  utility;  but  sounder  sense  is 
talked  by  some  of  the  discoverers  themselves;  thus 
Prof.  W.  H.  Bragg  writes:  "  Pure  Science  may  be  de- 
veloped by  itself,  but  it  is  the  gainer  if  its  workers 
are  alive  to  the  inspiration  which  is  to  be  found  in 
watching  its  application." 

Perhaps  the  matter  may  be  put  in  another  way  by 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  17 

distinguishing  between  end  and  motive,  for  several 
great  discoverers  have  admitted  that  in  the  background 
of  their  minds  there  was  ever  the  conviction  that 
Science  is  for  the  relief  of  man's  estate  as  well  as  for 
the  glory  of  God.  Thus  one  of  the  prominent  physi- 
cists of  the  Kelvin  period,  Prof.  Henry  A.  Rowland, 
in  an  address  on  "  The  Highest  Aim  of  the  Physicist  ", 
writes  that  while  the  investigator  "  strives  to  under- 
stand the  Universe  on  account  of  the  intellectual 
pleasure  derived  from  the  pursuit ",  he  is  upheld  in  his 
work  by  the  conviction  that  "  the  study  of  Nature's 
secrets  is  the  ordained  method  by  which  the  greatest 
good  and  happiness  shall  finally  come  to  the  human 
race  ".  Bacon  said  the  same  in  speaking  of  the  aim 
of  Salomon's  House  in  the  New  Atlantis: — "  The  end 
of  our  foundation  is  the  knowledge  of  causes  and  the 
secret  motions  of  things;  and  the  enlarging  of  the 
bounds  of  human  empire  to  the  effecting  of  all  things 
possible." 

Perhaps,  however,  there  is  more  to  be  feared  from 
the  second  risk  involved  in  the  thesis  that  Science  is 
for  Life — the  risk  of  suggesting  to  the  careless  and 
unlearned  a  falsely  partial  criterion.  Speaking  of  the 
educational  value  of  Science,  Professor  Bateson  has 
recently  written  (Cambridge  Essays  in  Education): 
"  There  is  something  horrible  and  terrifying  in  the 
doctrine  so  often  preached  .  .  .  that  Science  is  to 


1 8  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

be  preferred  because  of  its  utility."  Perhaps  there  is 
a  bit  of  a  bogey  here  too,  for  "  science  "  and  "  utility  " 
are  both  great  words,  no  narrow  meaning  of  which  can 
be  tolerated;  and  it  is  never  for  very  long  that  man 
can  forget  that  he  does  not  live  by  bread  alone.  But 
the  risk  is  undeniable,  and  the  remedy  is  a  continual 
re-appreciation  of  values.  It  was  in  recognition  of  the 
risk  we  are  discussing  that  Bacon  drew  a  distinction 
between  those  results  of  Science  which  are  light-giving 
(lucijera)  and  those  which  are  of  direct  practical 
utility  (fructifera),  and  said  so  nobly:  "  Just  as  the 
vision  of  light  itself  is  something  more  excellent  and 
beautiful  than  its  manifold  use,  so  without  doubt  the 
contemplation  of  things  as  they  are,  without  supersti- 
tion or  imposture,  without  error  or  confusion,  is  in 
itself  a  nobler  thing  than  a  whole  harvest  of  inven- 
tions." 

§  4.    The  Higher  Services  of  Science  to  Human 
Well-being. 

We  have  given  many  illustrations  of  what  Science 
can  do  for  Life,  but  the  thesis  is  wider  than  we  have 
yet  indicated. 

(a)  There  is  the  possibility,  some  would  say  de- 
sirability, of  more  definite  scientific  instruction  in  the 
art  of  life.  Education  is  in  part  intended  to  shorten 
the  individuaPs  recapitulation  of  racial  history,  by 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  19 

enabling  him,  for  instance,  to  utilise  the  enregistered 
wisdom  of  the  ages;  yet  for  lack  of  knowledge  we 
often  muddle  along,  making  all  sorts  of  anachronistic 
and  gratuitous  mistakes.  It  is  idle  to  pretend  that 
there  is  discipline  in  ignorantly  forging  shackles  for 
ourselves.  In  most  schools  the  instruction  in  the  laws 
of  bodily  and  mental  health  is  still  very  far  from  being 
adequate;  in  many  it  is  still  conspicuous  by  its 
absence. 

In  urging  the  consideration  of  this  we  need  not  fail 
to  appreciate  the  fine  note  of  William  James's 
Energies  of  Men,  that  ideas  are  "  dynamogenic  ",  that 
an  ideal  or  a  resolve  may  lift  a  tired  man  for  weeks 
on  to  a  higher  level  of  energy.  But,  granting  this,  we 
submit  that  Science  has  a  useful  work  to  do  in 
showing  how  to  remove  gratuitous  hindrances  which 
often  spoil  the  splendid  adventures  of  the  spirit. 
Carlyle  would  have  been  greater  than  he  was  if  his 
eyes  had  been  rightly  looked  after  in  his  youth. 

To  emphasise  the  value  of  Science  in  the  conduct  of 
life,  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  implying  any  deprecia- 
tion of  the  supreme  value  of  good-will  in  the  widest 
and  highest  sense,  or  of  the  other  than  scientific 
springs  whence  good- will  flows.  But  while  Science 
cannot  create  good-will,  it  may  help  to  guide  it,  espe- 
cially in  difficult  situations  and  on  the  occasion  of  new 
departures  where  people,  both  old  and  young,  often 


20  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

perish  for  lack  of  knowledge.  Truly,  knowledge  is  not 
virtue,  but  a  little  more  of  it  might  sometimes  help  a 
man  or  a  community  away  from  vice.  Science  will 
not  induce  a  man  to  love  his  neighbour  as  himself,  but 
it  sometimes  shows  him  how  to  do  it. 

(b)  We  must  not  be  drawn  from  our  thesis  by  the 
red- herring  of  the  rival  claims  of  Science  and  the 
Humanities.     This  is  too  like  making  an  antithesis 
between  fresh  air  and  meals.    We  need  in  our  educa- 
tion both  Science  and  the  Humanities,  and  more  of 
both,  time  for  enjoying  which  would  be  readily  pro- 
curable with  better  methods  of  teaching  and  learning, 
based  in  part  on  the  physiology  thereof.    The  antithe- 
sis is  a   false  one,   for  the   Humanities  have  their 
scientific  side,  and  every  Science  has  a  Humanity  as 
its  halo.     In  his  descriptions  and  formulations,  the 
scientific  investigator  must,  indeed,  hold  feeling  at  a 
spear's  length;  but  if  he  has  any  bodily  and  spiritual 
leisure  at  all,  he  is  bound  to  attempt  a  more  synoptic 
view,  trying,  as  Plato  said,  to  take  "  a  survey  of  the 
universe   of   things ".     The  study  of   the  magnalia 
Natura  is  a  brain-stretching  discipline,  but  it  also 
enriches  the  life  of  feeling. 

(c)  Beyond  the  additional  control  which  the  new 
chemistry,  the  new  physics,  the  new  biology,  and  so 
on,  are  giving  into  man's  hands,  there  is,  we  have  said, 
the  enrichment  of  the  inner  life  of  thought  and  feeling. 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  21 

But  beyond  this  again,  in  the  social  kingdom  of  man 
there  is  the  slowly  growing  systematisation  of  truth, 
to  which  the  contributions  of  Science  are  fundamental, 
though  one  may  not  call  them  supreme.  There  is  like- 
wise the  diffusion  of  a  scientific  mood  which  will  insist 
on  basing  all  sorts  of  action — personal  and  communal* 
national  and  international — on  securely  established 
facts.  Our  hope  is  in  Science  as  well  as  in  the  sciences, 
as  a  way  out  of  muddling  through. 

In  years  to  come,  we  believe,  the  State  will  habitu- 
ally and  as  a  matter  of  course  summon  the  scientific 
expert  to  her  aid,  an  expedient  which  has  already 
begun  to  be  tried.  In  face  of  every  difficult  problem, 
the  first  demand  will  be  for  the  facts  and  an  under- 
standing of  them.  In  many  cases,  at  present  urgent, 
the  needed  counsel  cannot  be  given,  for  the  requisite 
knowledge  does  not  exist.  We  need  more  Science.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  extent  to  which  already  available 
knowledge  is  left  unused  is  deplorable,  and  the  results 
have  been  very  costly.  When  we  think  of  the  more 
effective  and  less  wasteful  exploitation  of  the  earth,  or 
of  gathering  the  harvest  of  the  sea,  or  of  making 
occupations  more  wholesome,  or  of  beautifying  human 
surroundings,  or  of  exterminating  infectious  diseases, 
or  of  raising  the  health-rate,  or  of  improving  the 
physique  of  the  race,  or  of  recognising  the  physiological 
side  of  education,  we  are  amazed  at  the  non-utilisation 


22  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

of  valuable — though  confessedly  incomplete — scientific 
knowledge.  Much  has  been  done,  but  it  must  be 
confessed  that  Man  is  slow  to  follow  Science  into  the 
possession  of  his  kingdom.  Part  of  the  reason  is  that 
we  have  not  become  accustomed,  except  in  some  direc- 
tions, e.g.  medical  treatment,  to  believe  in  Science;  but 
a  great  part  of  the  reason  is  a  deficiency  of  character, 
that  we  do  not  care  enough,  that  we  lack  resolution. 

§5.    The  Larger  Ends. 

Some  critical  minds  may  have  been  thinking  that  all 
this  beating  of  the  scientific  drum  implies  the  naive 
assumption  that  more  and  more  Science  and  applica- 
tion of  Science  is  necessarily  for  the  good  of  mankind. 

"  Is  it  certain,  for  instance,  that  Science  leads  us 
to  the  truth?  "  One  remembers  how  Ruskin  in  Fors 
Clavigera  poured  out  the  vials  of  his  wrath  on  a 
Botany  which  showed  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
a  flower,  and  a  Psychology  which  proclaimed  the  use- 
lessness  of  the  soul.  The  widest  answer  is  probably 
to  go  back  to  where  we  began:  that  the  chief  end  of 
Science  is  to  describe  things  and  occurrences  as  com- 
pletely, simply,  and  consistently  as  possible,  and  that 
this  is  only  on  the  way  to  Truth — a  noble  term  which 
is  best  reserved  for  the  reward  of  a  synoptic  vision. 
It  is  contrary  to  philosophy  and  to  ordinary  experi- 
ence to  believe  that  man  can  come  near  exhausting 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  23 

the  reality  of  any  order  of  facts  by  scientific  methods 
only.  In  many  cases  in  everyday  life  we  are  helped 
by  feeling  to  an  understanding  that  is  beyond  Science. 
But  while  Science  is  not  Truth,  it  contributes  certain 
component  rays  to  its  sunlight;  and  Truth  apart  from 
Science  has  an  inconvenient  way  of  turning  into  moon- 
shine. Superstition  lies  in  wait  for  the  unscientific; 
and  the  anti-scientific  invite  it. 

These  applauded  advances  of  Science  that  have 
given  man  so  much  mastery  of  natural  wealth  and 
natural  power,  are  they  really  for  his  good?  Were 
they  not  used  of  late  to  bring  about  the  most  terrifying 
abomination  of  desolation  the  world  has  ever  seen? 
This  raises  a  large  question,  but  the  general  answer  is 
clear.  Firstly,  the  soundness  of  operations  in  any 
given  field  has  to  be  judged  by  certain  criteria  relevant 
to  that  field.  Thus  any  exploitation  of  physical  energy 
that  is  notoriously  wasteful  is  self-condemned.  But, 
secondly,  the  soundness  of  operations  in  any  given 
field  has  always  to  be  judged  in  terms  of  values  in 
any  higher  field  that  is  affected.  What  is  quite  sound 
physically  may  be  illegitimate  biologically;  what  is 
admirable  biologically  may  be  ruinous  socially.  Ulti- 
mately, all  operations  have  to  be  judged  before  the 
tribunal  of  the  highest  values — the  true,  the  beautiful, 
and  the  good. 

There  is  no  reason  to  be  afraid  of  any  application 


24  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

of  science  if  the  end  be  a  better  kind  of  life.  There 
is  no  reason  to  be  afraid  of  organisation  as  such  as 
long  as  it  leaves  man  free,  and  as  long  as  its  end  is 
more  than  productivity  and  more  than  comfort.  There 
is  no  reason  to  be  afraid  of  harnessing  Science  to  the 
chariot  of  civilisation  if  the  end  be  the  liberation  of 
the  spirit.  We  shall  return  to  this  in  the  last  chapter. 

IN  CONCLUSION. 

Here,  then,  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter. 
Many  of  the  shadows  that  blot  out  the  sun  and  many 
of  the  stumbling-blocks  that  trip  us  up  are  quite 
gratuitous,  and  may  be  got  rid  of  when  Man  pleases, 
leaving  him  more  free  for  higher  adventure.  "  Many 
evils,"  said  Maarten  Maartens,  "  are  not  of  God's  ap- 
pointing, but  of  man's  approving."  Science  can  bring 
about  great  amelioration  in  the  domain  of  things,  in 
the  realm  of  organisms,  and  even  in  the  kingdom  of 
Man.  Our  hope  is  that  action  will  be  increasingly 
based  on  scientific  facts,  and  that  the  habit  of  mind 
which  insists  on  this  will  spread.  For  knowledge  is 
foresight,  and  foresight  is  power. 

It  has  been  said  that  there  are  two  main  views  of 
this  world  of  ours,  that  which  regards  it  as  a  swamp 
to  be  crossed  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  that  which 
regards  it  as  a  marsh  land  to  be  reclaimed.  There  is 
no  doubt  which  is  the  scientific  view.  Man  must  con- 


SCIENCE  FOR  LIFE  25 

tinue  the  long-drawn-out  struggle  against  inhibitions 
and  limitations — the  campaign  which  living  creatures 
have  been  engaged  in  for  millions  of  years;  he  must 
press  on  in  the  endeavour  to  bring  the  inorganic  into 
the  service  of  the  organic,  to  bring  the  body-mind  into 
subordination  to  the  mind-body,  to  liberate  indi- 
viduality in  the  bonds  of  neighbourliness;  he  must 
seek  to  eliminate  the  disorderly,  the  ugly,  the  dis- 
cordant, the  involuntary  at  each  and  every  level;  he 
must  try,  not  despairing  of  his  weaknesses, "to  lean 
his  weight  on  the  side  of  the  integrative  or  evolu- 
tionary. 

Prof.  John  Dewey  declared  the  other  day  that 
"  the  future  of  our  civilisation  depends  upon  the 
widening  spread  and  deepening  hold  of  the  scientific 
habit  of  mind  ".  We  should  be  inclined  to  broaden 
the  dictum,  but  in  hoc  signo  laboremus.  In  the  dif- 
fusion of  the  scientific  mood  and  habit  of  mind  there 
is  great  hope.  Without  it  we  shall  go  on  as  before, 
pathetically  like  the  coloured  gentleman  who  averred 
that  he  did  not  know  where  he  was  going,  but  that 
he  was  on  his  way. 

Another  modern  philosopher,  Prof.  L.  T.  Hobhouse, 
has  declared  that  the  mundane  goal  of  the  evolutionary 
movement  is  "  the  mastery  by  the  human  mind  of  the 
conditions,  internal  as  well  as  external,  of  its  life  and 
growth  ".  And  so  it  appears  to  us,  though  for  "  mind  " 


26  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

we  should  read  "  organism  ".  In  other  words,  it  is 
Man's  part  to  continue  building  up  a  scientific  sys- 
tematisation  of  knowledge  which  will  increasingly 
form  the  basis  of  a  control  of  life.  For  Life  is  not 
for  Science,  but  Science  for  Life. 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE. 

§  i.  The  Idea  of  Evolution. — §  2.  The  Idea  of  Controlling 
Life. — §  3.  Illustrations  of  the  Control  of  Life. — 
§  4.  Faith  in  Science. 

§  i.    The  Idea  of  Evolution. 

ONE  of  the  biggest  intellectual  legacies  from  the 
nineteenth  century  was  the  theory  of  Organic  Evolu- 
tion. By  this  is  meant  not  only  the  general  idea  that 
the  present  is  the  child  of  the  past  and  the  parent  of 
the  future,  but  the  conviction  that  the  plants  and  ani- 
mals of  to-day  have  arisen  from  an  antecedent  realm 
of  plants  and  animals  of  (on  the  whole)  rather  simpler 
type,  and  that  the  change  has  been  brought  about  by 
a  co-operation  of  definite  natural  processes,  such  as 
varying  and  sifting,  comparable  to  processes  which 
can  be  seen  going  on  to-day.  The  realm  of  organisms 
has  had  a  history,  but,  more  than  that,  a  natural 
history  which  is  in  its  essential  features  still  con- 
tinuing and  therefore  observable.  It  is  true,  indeed, 
that  we  do  not  as  yet  know  much  about  the  causes 
of  varying  among  living  creatures,  but  we  are  sure 

27 


28  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

that  variations  crop  up  frequently  in  wild  life,  and  that 
they  are  subject  to  subtle  sifting  in  the  struggle  for 
existence.  This  is  a  theory  of  evolution  clear  enough 
to  be  going  on  with.  It  is  a  theory  in  terms  of  factors 
which  are  verifiable  to-day  and  open  to  experimental 
study.  Now,  this  theory  of  evolution  must,  of  course, 
apply  to  Man,  who  is  no  i  Grand  Exception ';  and  in 
this  special  case,  just  as  in  general,  there  are  two 
propositions.  In  the  first  place,  Man  is  an  antique, 
the  long  result  of  time,  the  outcome  of  a  complex 
pedigree.  He  is  solidary  with  the  rest  of  creation, 
though  also  strangely  apart.  He  is  affiliated  to  mam- 
mals, though  "  in  apprehension  how  like  a  god  ".  In 
the  second  place,  Man  has  a  natural  history  behind 
him,  and  ignorant  as  we  are,  it  is  possible  to  say  some- 
thing clear  and  firm  in  regard  to  the  factors  in  the 
great  ascent.  Man's  precise  origin  is  hidden  in 
obscurity,  but  we  know  in  a  general  way  the  pit 
whence  he  was  digged  and  the  rock  whence  he  was 
hewn — namely,  the  Primate  or  Simian  stock  of  mam- 
mals. We  cannot  tell  with  any  precision  how  he  won 
his  way  upwards,  but  we  have  more  than  glimpses  of 
some  of  the  factors,  and  the  inquiry — still  very  young 
— is  full  of  promise.  Both  for  Man  and  for  the  whole 
realm  of  living  creatures,  two  things  are  practically 
certain:  first,  that  the  present  has  grown  out  of  the 
past  in  a  continuous  way,  with  jerks  now  and  then, 


BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE      29 

perhaps,  but  with  no  gaps;  and,  second,  that  some  of 
the  factors  in  the  process  have  been  discovered,  that 
more  are  likely  to  be  discovered,  and  that  those  we 
know  have  their  counterparts  in  actual  operation 
to-day. 

§  2.    The  Idea  of  Controlling  Life. 

For  ages  before  Darwin's  day,  it  had  been  the  prac- 
tice of  shrewd  men  to  look  out  for  '  sports '  among 
dogs  and  horses,  pigeons  and  poultry,  and  so  on;  or 
for  '  novelties '  among  apples  and  roses,  cereals  and 
cabbages,  and  so  on.  These  sports  and  novelties, 
whose  origin  still  puzzles  the  biologist  were  used  as 
the  starting-points  of  valuable  breeds  of  animals  and 
varieties  of  plants.  The  secret  of  domestication  seems 
to  have  been  lost,  though  it  may  be  that  the  number 
of  domesticable  animals  was  never  large;  but  the  prac- 
tice of  improving  breeds  and  making  new  breeds  of 
domesticated  animals  has  been  for  a  long  time  familiar, 
as  in  the  case  of  cattle,  horses,  sheep,  dogs,  and  poultry. 
Additions  to  the  number  of  cultivated  plants  have 
continued  into  modern  times  and  the  improvement  of 
old-established  races  has  never  ceased. 

But  the  theoretical  side  of  this  control  had  been  dis- 
cerned by  few.  There  was  no  vivid  realisation  of  the 
fact  that  all  the  aristocrats  of  the  apple-orchard  are 
the  descendants  of  the  sour  plebeian  crab-apple  of  the 


30  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

wayside,  or  that  all  the  quaint  fantails  and  pouters, 
turbits  and  tumblers  of  the  dovecot  are  the  descend- 
ants of  the  rather  conventional  rock-dove  (Columba 
livia)  of  the  shore-cliffs.  The  significance  of  what 
cultivator  and  breeder  had  achieved  was  not  appre- 
ciated till  it  was  seen  in  the  light  of  Darwin's  gen- 
eralisation, that  the  present  has  evolved  from  the  past, 
that  the  factors  in  the  process  are  discoverable  and 
like  those  in  operation  now.  In  the  light  of  this,  it 
could  not  but  occur  to  thoughtful  minds  that  if  the 
evolution  of  domesticated  animals  and  cultivated 
plants  can  be  controlled — in  proportion  to  our  dis- 
cernment of  the  factors — the  same  must  hold  good 
in  some  measure  at  least  for  the  future  evolution  of 
Man.  Thus  arose  a  new  idea,  or  an  old  idea  in  a  new 
form, — the  scientific  or  biological  control  of  life.  This 
practical  idea  of  control  is  the  outcome  of  the  theo- 
retical idea  of  evolution,  and  it  is  an  incipient  charac- 
teristic of  the  age  in  which  we  live. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  medical  practitioners  had 
been  controlling  life  since  the  times  of  Hippocrates, 
that  educationists,  moralists,  and  religious  teachers  had 
been  working  for  ages  towards  a  firmer  control  of  life, 
but  the  modern  idea  is  rather  different.  Its  view  of 
Man's  nature  is  wider  than  that  prevalent  in  medical 
practice;  thus  it  considers  not  the  individual  only, 
but  the  race  or  stock  as  well.  It  differs  from  educa- 


BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE      31 

tional,  ethical,  and  religious  control  in  bringing  to 
bear  on  the  problem  of  Man's  betterment  the  resources 
of  the  modern  science  of  biology  and  the  encouraging 
stimulus  of  the  idea  of  evolution — which,  though  of 
ancient  origin,  had  not  gripped  men's  minds  before 
modern  times.  There  were  indeed  glimpses  of  it,  as 
when  Bacon  wrote  in  regard  to  Salomon's  House  in 
the  New  Atlantis:  "  The  end  of  our  foundation  is  the 
knowledge  of  causes  and  the  secret  motions  of  things; 
and  the  enlarging  of  the  bounds  of  human  empire,  to 
the  effecting  of  all  things  possible."  And  again  in  a 
famous  passage  in  The  Advancement  of  Learning  he 
said:  "  This  is  that  which  will  indeed  dignify  and  exalt 
knowledge  if  contemplation  and  action  be  more  nearly 
and  straitly  conjoined  and  united  together  than  they 
have  been ;  for  men  have  entered  into  a  desire  of  learn- 
ing and  knowledge,  sometimes  upon  a  natural  curiosity 
and  inquisitive  appetite;  sometimes  to  entertain  their 
minds  with  variety  and  delight;  sometimes  for  orna- 
ment and  reputation;  and  sometimes  to  enable  them 
to  victory  of  wit  and  contradiction;  and  most  times 
for  lucre  and  profession;  and  seldom  to  give  a  true 
account  of  their  gift  of  reason  to  the  benefit  of  man; 
as  if  there  were  sought  in  knowledge  a  couch  where- 
upon to  repose  a  searching  and  a  restless  spirit;  or  a 
tarasse  for  a  wandering  and  variable  mind  to  walk  up 
and  down  with  a  fair  prospect;  or  a  tower  of  state  for 


32  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

a  proud  mind  to  raise  itself  upon;  or  a  fort  or  com- 
manding ground  for  strife  and  contention;  or  a  shop 
for  profit  or  sale;  and  not  a  rich  storehouse  for  the 
glory  of  the  creator  and  the  relief  of  man's  estate." 
The  idea  of  using  knowledge  for  "  the  relief  of  man's 
estate  "  is  the  idea  of  the  scientific  control  of  life; 
but  in  Bacon's  day  the  available  biological  knowledge 
was  scanty,  and  the  evolution  clue  was  not  in  Man's 
hand. 

Now  just  as  the  theoretical  advance  implied  in  the 
theory  of  evolution  is  fitly  and  conveniently  associated 
with  the  name  of  Darwin  (though  there  were  other 
pioneer  evolutionists),  so  the  idea  of  the  biological  con- 
trol of  life  may  be  fitly  associated  with  the  name  of 
Pasteur.  He  was  neither  a  breeder  nor  a  cultivator, 
neither  an  evolutionist  nor  a  eugenist,  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  but  he  was  the  sublime  peasant  who  tamed  and 
cultivated  Bacteria  and  make  them  serve  his  purposes, 
he  gave  us  the  secret  of  the  conquest  of  many  kinds 
of  diseases,  and  he  had  a  Darwin-like  appreciation  of 
the  subtlety  of  inter-relations  in  the  web  of  life. 

Darwin  had  shown  that  the  forms  of  life  which 
seemed  so  stable  were  in  process  of  racial  flux — though 
the  change  might  be  as  imperceptible  as  the  move- 
ment of  a  glacier.  The  individual,  moreover,  was 
shown  to  be  plastic  (technically,  modifiable)  for  better 
or  for  worse,  under  the  influence  of  changed  surround- 


BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE      33 

ings  and  changed  habits,  both  in  the  way  of  use  and 
in  the  way  of  disuse.  Thus  the  whole  aspect  of  things 
was  changed.  The  outlook  became  vividly  dynamic, 
and  the  idea  of  the  controllability  of  life  began  to 
grip.  If  flowers  and  pigeons  can  be  controlled  so 
effectively,  then  why  not  human  life  also?  If  Man 
can  evolve  out  of  some  sort  of  wolf  the  domesticated 
dog,  the  dependable  guardian  of  the  flocks,  may  he 
not  hopefully  try  to  evolve  the  wolfish  out  of  himself? 
Are  there  not  organic  shackles  which  may  be  dealt 
with  biologically,  setting  Man  free  for  higher  adven- 
tures? When  men  were  asking  such  questions,  usually 
in  a  half-convinced  way,  Pasteur  began  a  series  of 
achievements  which  were  inspired  by  the  idea  of  the 
biological  control  of  life.  Beginning  with  the  silkworm 
disease  which  was  ruining  the  south  of  France,  he 
advanced  to  such  terrible  maladies  as  splenic  fever 
and  hydrophobia,  conquering  by  understanding.  With 
object-lessons  on  a  grand  scale  he  convinced  all  intel- 
lectual combatants  who  cared  to  understand  that  the 
days  of  fatalism  and  folded  hands  were  over,  and  that 
it  was  for  Man,  with  Science  as  torch,  to  enter  bravely 
into  fuller  possession  of  his  kingdom. 

§  3.   Illustrations  of  the  Control  of  Life. 

Speaking  of  cockchafer-beetles  and  the  local  fam- 
ines which  their  ravages  sometimes  brought  about 


34  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

in  bygone  days,  Prof.  A.  Giard  recalls  the  fact  that 
they  used  to  be  dealt  with  by  ecclesiastical,  not  by 
scientific  authority.  "  In  1479  they  were  summoned 
before  the  ecclesiastical  tribunal  of  Lausanne  and  de- 
fended by  an  advocate  from  Fribourg.  After  de- 
liberation, they  were  banished  from  the  territory. 
O  temporal  "  This  may  serve  as  a  diagrammatic,  and 
therefore  extreme,  illustration  of  old-world  methods,  in 
which  the  control  of  life  was  attempted,  but  not  along 
the  lines  of  science. 

Another  phase,  still  extant  a  few  years  ago,  may  be 
illustrated  by  reference  to  locust  plagues  in  South 
Africa.  The  critical  moment  in  dealing  with  these 
voracious  insects,  which  find  a  countryside  a  garden 
and  leave  it  in  a  few  days  a  desert,  is  while  they  are 
still  wingless  foot-passengers.  They  travel  in  great 
hordes,  but  if  concerted  opposition  is  organised  they 
can  be  destroyed  in  millions  by  digging  moats  and  by 
other  methods.  Thus  the  crops  may  be  saved  and  the 
multiplication  of  the  locust  race  checked.  Everything 
depends,  however,  on  concerted  action,  on  sending 
word  of  the  approach  of  the  locust  infantry,  and  on 
forming  something  equivalent  to  a  barrage  to  stop  their 
offensive.  This  can  be  done  effectively;  yet  only  a 
few  years  ago  quite  a  number  of  religious  and  worthy 
Boer  farmers — unconsciously  impious — refused  to  join 
in  with  the  Anti-locust  league,  giving  for  their  reason 


BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE      35 

that  it  was  attempting  to  stay  the  hand  of  God.  So 
did  some  religious  people  in  Scotland  protest  against 
the  use  of  chloroform  in  childbirth. 

The  definitely  modern  phase  may  be  illustrated  with 
reference  to  the  checking  of  malaria.  This  disease, 
whose  name,  meaning  bad  air,  takes  us  back  to  the 
days  before  it  was  understood,  is  due  to  a  microscopic 
animal  (Plasmodium)  which  was  demonstrated  by 
Laveran  (1880)  in  the  red  blood  corpuscles.  The 
parasite  forms  spores  in  the  corpuscles,  and  these 
spores  are  set  free  in  the  blood,  their  behaviour  cor- 
responding to  the  patient's  chills  and  fevers.  In  1894 
Grassi  showed  that  part  of  the  life  of  the  malaria 
parasite  is  spent  within  the  mosquito,  and  the  details 
of  the  story  are  complicated.  By  their  bites  the  mos- 
quitos  become  infected  and  by  their  bites  they  also 
infect.  In  1898  Ross  proved  that  fogs  and  vapours 
and  marshes  are  merely  of  indirect  moment  in  produc- 
ing the  disease,  which  can  only  be  acquired  if  an 
infected  mosquito  introduces  some  of  the  parasites 
into  man.  If  man  can  protect  himself,  with  mosquito- 
curtains  or  the  like,  from  mosquito-bites,  he  protects 
himself  ipso  facto  from  malaria.  Moreover,  the  larval 
mosquitos  live  in  water-pools,  and  have  to  come  to 
the  surface  to  breathe.  If  a  little  petrol  be  poured  on 
the  pool,  it  forms  a  surface-film  through  which  the 
breathing-tube  of  the  larval  mosquito  cannot  pene- 


36  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

trate.  Thus  the  young  mosquitos  are  suffocated  and 
malaria  is  checked.  The  success  of  this  method  has 
been  dramatically  illustrated  in  connection  with  the 
making  of  the  Panama  Canal  and  on  a  smaller  scale 
around  places  like  Khartoum.  Now,  the  point  is,  that 
this  method  of  controlling  life  was  discovered  by  turn- 
ing scientific  investigations  on  to  the  problem,  and  by 
basing  practical  action  on  the  facts  discovered. 

The  same  kind  of  story  might  be  told  in  regard  to 
some  other  diseases.  Thus  at  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century  Walter  Reed  showed  that  a  mosquito 
called  Stegomyia  jasciata  carries  the  virus  of  yellow 
fever.  Bitten  people  die,  while  those  who  used  their 
bedding  but  were  not  bitten  did  not  take  the  disease. 
Similarly  Bruce  showed  that  the  tsetse  fly  is  the  carrier 
of  the  microscopic  animal  (Trypanosoma  evansi) 
which  causes  sleeping  sickness,  from  which  200,000 
may  die  in  one  year. 

Among  the  most  troublesome  of  human  parasites 
are  the  hookworms,  insidious  Nematodes  which  are 
able  to  make  their  way  through  the  skin,  and  are  very 
common  in  many  warm  countries.  One  kind  espe- 
cially affects  miners,  for  the  moisture  and  high  tem- 
peratures of  underground  workings  are  favourable  to 
the  development  of  the  hookworm  eggs  which  are 
excreted  from  man.  A  knowledge  of  the  life-history 
of  the  parasite  has  led  to  the  suggestion  of  measures 


BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE      37 

to  prevent  the  pollution  of  water  and  soil,  and,  thanks 
in  great  part  to  the  American  Rockefeller  Foundation, 
the  disease  has  been  brought  under  control.  The  first 
step  is  to  kill  the  worms  in  the  individual  patients; 
the  second  is  to  prevent  pollution  of  the  soil  so  that 
the  microscopic  parasites  may  not  be  there  to  continue 
the  infection.  In  some  mining  areas  the  number  of 
victims  has  been  reduced  in  twelve  years  (1902-1914) 
from  25  to  3,  or  22.8  to  1.2  per  cent.,  which  are  elo- 
quent figures. 

One  of  the  striking  features  of  the  early  years  of 
the  twentieth  century  has  been  the  progress  in  the 
experimental  study  of  heredity.  It  received  a  great 
stimulus  in  1900  with  the  rediscovery  of  Mendel's 
epoch-making  investigations,  which  had  been  strangely 
lost  sight  of  since  their  publication  in  1865.  A  clue 
has  been  put  into  the  hands  of  breeders  and  culti- 
vators which  has  enabled  them,  and  will  increasingly 
enable  them  to  contribute  to  the  betterment  of  man's 
estate — as  far  as  his  domesticated  animals  and  culti- 
vated plants  are  concerned.  From  Prof.  James  Wilson's 
admirable  Manual  of  Mendelism  (1916)  we  take  two 
or  three  illustrations. 

The  average  yield  of  wheat  in  Britain  is  about  32 
bushels  to  the  acre.  Professor  Wilson  tells  us  that  it 
might  be  raised  to  40  or  even  50.  "  For  every  day  by 
which  the  life  of  a  variety  of  wheat  is  shortened 


38  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

between  seedtime  and  harvest,  the  wheat-growing  area 
in  Canada  reaches  fifty  or  sixty  miles  farther  north- 
wards. A  vigorous,  early  ripening  and  highly  produc- 
tive oat,  together  with  a  turnip  having  the  same  char- 
acters, might  increase  the  returns  from  many  a  nor- 
thern or  high-lying  farm  in  Britain  and  might  even  be 
the  means  of  causing  many  a  pasture  field  to  revert 
once  again  to  the  plough  without  the  artificial  and 
precarious  stimulus  of  a  protective  duty."  "  The  work 
done  in  Denmark  shows  how  the  wealth  of  our  coun- 
try [Britain]  so  far  as  it  proceeds  from  dairy  cattle 
might  be  nearly  doubled."  These  are  but  diagram- 
matic examples  of  the  kind  of  progress  which  the 
practical  application  of  Mendelian  methods  might  im- 
mediately realise. 

We  take  another  illustration  from  a  lecture  by  Prof. 
William  Bateson,  one  of  the  leaders  of  experimental 
inquiry  into  the  physiology  of  heredity  and  variation, 
a  study  now  spoken  of  as  genetics.  "No  practical 
dog-breeder  or  seedsman  can  see  the  results  of 
Mendelian  recombination  without  perceiving  that  here 
is  a  bit  of  knowledge  he  can  immediately  apply.  No 
sociologist  can  examine  the  pedigrees  illustrating  the 
simple  descent  of  a  deformity  or  a  congenital  disease, 
and  not  see  that  the  new  knowledge  gives  a  solid 
basis  for  practical  action  by  which  the  composition  of 
a  race  could  be  modified  if  society  so  chose.  And 


BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE     39 

again: — "  If  we  want  to  raise  mangels  that  will  not 
turn  to  seed,  or  to  breed  a  cow  that  will  give  more 
milk  in  less  time,  or  milk  with  more  butter  and  less 
water,  we  can  turn  to  Genetics  with  every  hope  that 
something  can  be  done  in  these  laudable  directions. 
But  here  I  would  plead  what  I  cannot  but  regard  as 
a  higher  usefulness  in  our  work.  Genetic  inquiry  aims 
at  providing  knowledge  that  may  bring,  and  I  think 
will  bring  certainty  into  a  region  of  human  affairs  and 
concepts  which  might  have  been  supposed  reserved  for 
ages  to  be  the  domain  of  the  visionary."  Professor 
Bateson  here  alludes  to  the  change  of  outlook  that 
must  follow  the  demonstration  that  this  or  that  human 
characteristic  is  transmitted  to  offspring  according  to 
definite  predictable  rules. 

Another  illustration  may  be  taken  from  a  very  dif- 
ferent field.  For  many  years  scientific  attention  has 
been  directed  to  the  puzzling  occurrence  of  dull, 
dwarfish  children  called  '  cretins  ',  who  are  sad  failures 
in  their  main  business  of  growing  up.  After  many 
years  of  inquiry  it  was  discovered  that  the  common 
feature  in  these  defective  children  from  different 
places  and  different  races  was  an  imperfect  develop- 
ment of  the  thyroid  gland  or  '  throat-sweetbread ' — 
a  small  paired  organ  which  lies  beside  the  larynx  or 
Adam's  apple  and  furnishes  to  the  blood  passing 
through  it  an  indispensable  internal  secretion  or 


40  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

hormone.  This  small  organ,  which  certainly  does  not 
look  as  if  it  were  of  much  importance,  is  essential  to 
the  health  and  normal  development  of  both  body  and 
mind.  This  knowledge  gained,  the  practical  applica- 
tion speedily  followed.  It  was  found  that  the  cretin 
children  and  others  tending  in  the  same  direction  could 
be  rescued  by  giving  them,  as  part  of  their  food,  the 
thyroid  glands  of  sheep.  As  Sir  William  Osier,  one 
of  the  masters  of  modern  medicine,  put  it,  "  The  re- 
sults as  a  rule  are  most  astounding — unparalleled  by 
anything  in  the  whole  range  of  curative  measures. 
Within  six  weeks  a  poor,  feeble-minded,  toad-like 
caricature  of  humanity  may  be  restored  to  mental  and 
bodily  health.  The  skin  becomes  moist,  the  pulse-rate 
quickens,  and  the  mental  torpor  lessens."  And  this 
is  not  an  isolated  instance  of  medical  magic. 

§  4.   Faith  in  Science. 

Obvious  common  sense  it  seems,  when  confronted 
with  difficulties  and  limitations,  to  get  at  the  facts,  to 
work  at  them  till  they  are  understood,  and  then  to 
apply  in  practice  the  science  thus  gained.  This  is 
what  man  has  always  been  doing  in  a  rough  and  ready 
way  in  his  primary  occupations,  as  hunter,  shepherd, 
gardener,  fisher,  and  so  on.  Out  of  the  practical  lore 
there  has  evolved  the  criticised,  systematised,  com- 
municable knowledge  which  we  call  Science.  Up  to 


BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE      41 

a  certain  point  and  along  certain  lines  men  believe  in 
this  science,  and  do  not  dream  of  dispensing  with  its 
aid.  To  build  a  bridge  or  a  ship,  to  make  a  dam  or 
a  canal,  to  fashion  a  lens  or  a  big  gun,  without  utilising 
the  available  science  is  reckoned  madness;  why,  then, 
does  one  require  to  plead  for  more  scientific  control 
of  life? 

The  answer  is  threefold,  (a)  In  the  first  place,  the 
sciences  that  are  relevant  to  the  control  of  things  are 
much  more  advanced,  much  more  exact,  much  more 
reliable,  than  those  that  are  relevant  to  the  control  of 
life.  It  is  not  merely  that  they  or  their  foundations 
are  older;  it  is  that  the  material  is  more  readily  sub- 
jected to  an  analysis  which  for  practical  purposes 
(though  perhaps  not  for  philosophical  purposes)  has 
attained  or  can  attain  to  a  high  degree  of  exhaustive- 
ness.  It  is  easier  to  predict  the  movements  of  a  comet 
than  those  of  a  cat.  (b)  The  second  reason  is  that  in 
dealing  with  living  creatures  and  with  himself,  it  is 
temptingly  easy  for  man  to  muddle  along.  The  farm- 
er may  not  be  getting  out  of  the  soil  anything  like 
what  the  application  of  scientific  agriculture  would 
make  possible;  but  crops  are  forthcoming,  and  in 
prosperous  times  they  may  suffice.  Necessity  is  the 
mother  of  invention,  and  when  men  of  certain  tem- 
peraments are  getting  along  comfortably  without  ap- 
plying much  science,  they  prefer  to  let  things  be» 


42  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

When  the  pinch  begins  to  be  felt,  a  belated  appeal  is 
made  to  Science,  (c)  The  third  reason  is  to  be  found 
in  a  strange  distrust  of  new  ideas,  for  the  idea  of 
actively  directing  human  evolution  in  the  light  of 
Science  must  still  be  called  new.  In  face  of  a  difficult 
human  problem  it  will  occur  to  many  to  lend  a  helping 
hand  and  to  put  energy,  enthusiasm,  good-will,  tears, 
and  prayers  into  the  business,  but  it  still  occurs  to 
few  to  put  scientific  inquiry  at  work.  Legislation, 
coercion,  personal  persuasion,  religion  will  all  be  tried, 
before  scientific  investigators  are  set  to  work  to  get  at 
the  facts,  to  win  an  understanding  of  them,  and  to 
bring  this  understanding  and  previously  established 
science  to  bear  on  their  control.  The  appointment  of 
commissions  is,  of  course,  a  familiar  device,  but  these 
are  not  of  themselves  of  avail  unless  they  include  an 
adequate  representation  of  men  accustomed  to  scien- 
tific inquiry,  and  unless  the  finding  scientifically  ar- 
rived at  is  effectively  put  into  practice. 

The  non-scientific  view  of  life  inevitably  leads  to 
fatalism,  which  a  doctrine  of  providential  interven- 
tions is  often  invoked  to  relieve.  We  find  this  old- 
fashioned  view  of  extrinsic  evils  lying  in  wait  to 
destroy  the  life  which  deserved  a  better  fate,  vividly 
expressed  in  the  reverie  of  the  hero  of  Turgenev's 
Torrents  of  Spring.  "  He  did  not  picture  life's  sea,  as 
the  poets  depict  it,  covered  with  tempestuous  waves; 


BIOLOGICAL  CONTROL  OF  LIFE      43 

no,  he  thought  of  that  sea  as  a  smooth,  untroubled 
surface,  stagnant  and  transparent  to  its  darkest  depths. 
He  himself  sits  in  a  little  tottering  boat,  and  down 
below  in  those  dark  oozy  depths,  like  prodigious  fishes, 
he  can  just  make  out  the  shapes  of  hideous  monsters: 
all  the  ills  of  life,  diseases,  sorrows,  madness,  poverty, 
blindness.  He  gazes;  and  behold,  one  of  these  mon- 
sters separates  itself  off  from  the  darkness,  rises 
higher  and  higher,  stands  out  more  and  more  distinct, 
more  and  more  loathsomely  distinct.  ...  An  instant 
yet,  and  the  boat  that  bears  him  will  be  overturned. 
But  behold,  it  grows  dim  again,  it  withdraws,  sinks 
down  to  the  bottom,  and  there  it  lies,  faintly  stirring 
in  the  slime.  .  .  .  But  the  fated  day  will  come,  and 
it  will  overturn  the  boat." 

Times  and  ideas  are  changing,  however,  and  there 
is  a  broadening  recognition  that  Science  is  for  Life, 
not  Life  for  Science.  Even  the  philosophers  have 
begun  to  tell  us  with  their  wonted  clarity  that  the 
systematisation  of  knowledge  for  the  evolution  of  a 
more  perfect  society  is  Man's  supreme  duty. 


CHAPTER  III. 
OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE. 

§i.  The  Three  Fates.— §  2.  The  Elements  of  Our  ln~ 
heritance. — §  3.  Fundamental  Facts  of  Heredity. — §  4. 
Recent  Advances  in  the  Study  of  Heredity. — §  5.  Dif- 
ferent Modes  of  Inheritance. — §  6.  Statistical  Study  of 
Heredity. — §  7.  Inheritance  and  Disease. 

§  i.    The  Three  Fates. 

As  far  as  Biology  is  concerned  there  are  three  de- 
termining factors  in  life.  First  and  foremost  there  is 
our  flesh  and  blood  relation  to  parents  and  ancestors 
(Heredity) ;  second,  there  are  all  sorts  of  surrounding 
influences  (Environment),  along  with  which  may  be 
included  opportunities;  and  third,  there  are  our  habits 
(Function),  both  positive  and  negative,  doing  and  not- 
doing, — for  sluggishness  moulds  the  body  as  surely  as 
strenuous  exercise.  As  all  the  three  factors — we  may 
say  Three  Fates — are  powerful  and  always  operative, 
it  is  not  very  urgent  to  argue  about  the  order  of  their 
importance.  Men  cannot  make  bricks  without  clay — 
that  is,  the  natural  inheritance.  Neither  can  they 
make  them  without  heat — that  is,  the  environmental 
factor.  A  living  creature  cannot  realise  its  initial  self, 

44 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       45 

i.e.  its  inheritance,  without  activity  or  exercise,  without 
food,  or  without  the  stimulus  of  appropriate  surround- 
ings, but  the  way  in  which  the  creature  uses  the  influ- 
ences that  play  upon  it,  the  way  in  which  it  girds  up 
its  loins  to  work  or  lets  itself  go  in  play,  is  in  part 
determined  by  what  it  owes  to  parents  and  ancestors. 
In  part,  not  wholly;  and  that  for  two  reasons: — first, 
because  peculiarities  in  the  circumstances  count  for 
something  in  themselves,  being  often  provocative  to 
effort  and  often  deadening  in  their  dullness;  and, 
second,  because  each  new  creature,  while  owing  every- 
thing to  the  past,  has  in  some  measure  an  individuality 
of  its  own  and  thus  an  element  of  unpredictability. 
Here  we  touch  one  of  the  most  difficult  of  intel- 
lectual problems,  the  harmonising  of  facts  which  point 
to  determinism  with  facts  which  point  to  individual 
freedom  of  action,  but  all  that  we  need  notice  at 
present  is  that  a  child  is  often  very  obviously  a  dis- 
tinctive personality  that  cannot  be  accounted  for  in 
any  rough  and  ready  way  as  the  necessary  resultant 
of  component  factors  observable  in  its  parents.  It  is 
a  familiar  fact  (not  difficult  to  explain)  that  brothers 
are  often  very  dissimilar  in  nature.  It  is  also  well 
known  nowadays  that  a  pair  of  grey  mice,  the  offspring 
of  a  grey  father  and  a  white  mother,  will  have  in  one 
litter  both  grey  and  white  progeny.  But  there  is  a 
broader  fact — the  likelihood  that  the  young  life  will  be 


46  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

in  some  measure  a  new  pattern,  a  fresh  unification,  an 
individuality.  Variability  is  a  big  fact  of  life.  More- 
over, it  is  of  fundamental  importance  in  human  life  to 
understand  clearly  that  whenever  we  begin  to  trade 
with  our  surroundings  (and  who  shall  say  how  early 
that  begins?),  to  adjust  ourselves  actively  to  our  en- 
vironment, to  play  the  great  game,  we  build  new  ele- 
ments into  ourselves,  so  that  next  time  we  act  not  only 
because  of  our  hereditary  nature,  but  also  because  of 
what  we  have  ourselves  made  of  it.  This  is  particu- 
larly true  of  Man,  because  of  his  fine  brain  and  strong 
social  predispositions,  but  it  is  also  true  of  dog  and 
of  starfish. 

The  fundamental  thing  is  the  natural  inheritance,  by 
which  is  meant  everything  that,  in  some  way  incon- 
ceivable to  us,  lies  implicit  in  the  fertilised  egg-cell. 
There,  in  a  microcosm  whose  outlines  alone  are  visible, 
our  inheritance  lies  latent,  and  the  quality  of  it, 
whether  rich  or  poor,  depends  on  parental  and  ances- 
tral contributions,  though  the  unification  of  these 
sometimes  yields,  as  we  have  said,  unexpected  and 
unpredicted  results.  For  while  great  geniuses  are  rare, 
minor  geniuses  are  not  uncommon. 

But  though  the  foundations  of  our  constitution  are 
laid  down  for  us  by  our  relation  to  parents  and 
ancestors,  the  outcome  depends  on  the  way  in  which 
WE — the  unified  organisation — relate  ourselves  to  air 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       47 

and  food,  sunshine  and  rain,  work  and  play,  exercise 
and  rest,  and  to  the  social  heritage  which  is  registered 
in  institutions  and  traditions,  literature  and  art,  and 
the  framework  of  society  itself.  The  number  of 
talents  we  get  to  start  with  is  settled  beforehand,  but 
it  is  within  limits  open  to  us  to  increase  their  value 
by  trading. 

The  living  creature  or  organism  is  a  concrete  reality 
before  our  eyes;  so  is  the  complex  of  external  influ- 
ences which  we  call  the  environment;  function  is  a 
general  term  for  the  actions  and  reactions  between 
them,  and  for  the  internal  activities  such  as  the  beat- 
ing of  the  heart  and  thinking  which  go  on  without 
obvious  stimulation  from  outside.  Sometimes  the 
organism  acts  on  its  surroundings  in  a  masterly  way, 
as  when  beavers  cut  down  trees  and  build  dams;  or 
when  a  sheep  devours  part  of  its  environment,  namely, 
the  grass;  or  when  a  lichen  eats  into  the  surface  of 
the  rock.  This  might  be  represented  by  the  formula, 
as  Prof.  Patrick  Geddes  suggests,  O  — -  /  — -  e. 
At  other  times  the  environment  seems  to  get  the 
upper  hand,  impressing  changes  upon  the  organism, 
inciting  it  by  warmth  to  more  rapid  change  or  slowing 
down  by  cold  the  vital  processes,  now  inducing  change 
of  colour  and  again  effecting  deeper  dints.  This  might 
be  represented  by  the  formula  E  — -  /  — -  o;  and  thus 
we  reach  Professor  Geddes's  useful  idea,  that  living 


48  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

is  a  continual  adjustment  of  a  twofold  dynamic  rela- 

Q / ^  g 

tion :  -.    In  a  dry  seed  that  has  been  lying 

for  several  seasons  in  the  granary,  in  a  desiccated 
paste-eel  that  has  remained  in  a  state  of  latent  life 
for  years,  the  twofold  dynamic  relation  has  stopped 
altogether  or  is  so  near  interruption  that  no  evidence 
of  its  persistence  can  be  found.  But  the  organisation 
that  makes  living  possible  has  not  disappeared,  as  is 
easily  proved  by  planting  the  hard  seed  in  the  ground 
or  by  surrounding  the  brittle  paste-eel  with  water. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  linger  any  longer  over  pre- 
liminaries, provided  it  be  clear  that  it  is  only  for  pur- 
poses of  convenience  that  we  can  separate  off  organ- 
ism, inheritance,  environment,  and  function.  An 
organism  cannot  live  without  an  environment;  func- 
tion is  action  and  reaction  between  organism  and 
environment;  the  organism  and  its  inheritance  are,  to 
begin  with,  one;  heredity  is  the  organic  relation  be- 
tween a  creature  and  its  ancestry.  All  this  is  bio- 
logically commonplace;  we  separate  off  these  '  aspects  ' 
for  convenience  of  study.  But  the  trouble  is  that 
when  we  pass  to  the  problems  of  human  life  we  either 
ignore  the  biological  fundamentals  altogether,  and 
imagine,  or  act  as  if  we  imagined,  that  human  children 
can  be  rightly  reared  in  inhuman  environment,  or  we 
lay  emphasis  on  one  factor,  and  make  a  fetish  of  it, 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       49 

out  of  relation  to  the  others,  as  when  we  say  that  if 
we  could  only  put  an  end  to  this  or  that  pernicious 
function  then  all  would  be  well  with  mankind.  The 
condonation  of  the  second  error  is  that  different 
aspects  of  betterment  appeal  to  different  minds  and 
that  few  people  can  do  more  than  one  thing  at  a  time. 
None  the  less  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  realities 
are  living  creatures  acting  and  reacting  in  certain  sur- 
roundings, and  not  only  affiliated  to  ancestors  but 
responsible  for  descendants. 

§  2.    The  Elements  of  Our  Inheritance. 

Inheriting  suggests  an  heir  and  a  legacy,  but  our 
inheritance  is  at  first  the  whole  of  us.  As  will  after- 
wards become  clear,  it  is  not  very  accurate  to  continue 
using  the  convenient  phrase  that  a  parent  transmits 
gifts  and  blemishes  to  his  offspring.  For  parents  are 
not  so  much  the  immediate  producers  of  children  as 
the  custodians  or  trustees  of  germ-cells  which  develop 
into  children. 

It  is  natural  to  ask:  What  makes  up  our  inheritance? 
and  modern  investigation  has  begun  to  answer  the 
question,  (a)  Within  the  circle  of  the  normal,  we  all 
start  with  a  stock  of  old-established  human  characters 
which  exhibit  little  essential  change  from  generation 
to  generation.  Thus  every  child  has  a  certain  struc- 
ture of  heart  or  lung,  of  brain  or  eye,  which  is  char- 


50  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

acteristic  of  mankind,  which  is  not  departed  from  in 
any  essential  way  except  on  rare  occasions.  Many  of 
these  fundamental  characters  have  their  counterparts 
in  all  ordinary  backboned  animals,  every  type  having 
them,  but  having  them  in  some  distinctive  form. 
Thus  part  of  our  inheritance  includes  a  backbone,  a 
structural  item  of  inconceivable  antiquity;  but  what 
we  have  is  not  only  a  backbone,  it  is  a  mammal's  back- 
bone. More  than  that,  it  is  a  Primate  backbone;  more 
precisely  still,  it  is  a  humanoid  backbone — that  and 
nought  else.  Or  again,  while  men  differ  greatly  from 
one  another  in  wits,  every  child  has  as  part  of  its 
inheritance  a  brain,  and  this  is  not  merely  a  Verte- 
brate's brain,  it  is  a  MammaPs  brain,  a  Placental 
MammaPs  brain,  a  Primate  brain,  a  humanoid  brain, 
and  in  all  ordinary  cases  a  brain  characteristic  of  the 
'modern  man  type'.  There  are  between  man  and 
man  great  differences  in  the  relative  size  and  weight 
of  the  brain  in  proportion  to  the  body;  there  are  dif- 
ferences in  the  minute  details  of  the  brain;  there  are 
differences  in  the  rate  at  which  the  brain  works,  and 
so  on;  but,  barring  accidents,  there  are  no  differ- 
ences in  the  general  architecture  of  the  brain.  And 
so  for  other  parts.  Thus  we  may  picture  in  every 
human  inheritance  a  sort  of  fundamental  organisation 
which  has  ceased  to  show  more  than  detailed  varia- 
tions. 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       51 

Along  with  the  common  stock  of  human  organisa- 
tion there  is,  of  course,  a  common  stock  of  human 
capacities.  The  two  aspects  of  form  and  function, 
structure  and  activity,  are  inseparable.  Just  as  all 
ordinary  mammals  have  a  capacity  for  being  '  warm- 
blooded '  (i.e.  regulating  production  and  loss  of  heat 
so  that  an  approximately  constant  temperature  is  sus- 
tained), and  a  capacity  for  profiting  by  experience,  so 
all  normal  human  beings  have  a  capacity  for  speech 
and  a  considerable  capacity  for  intelligent  inference. 
The  Zulu,  a  fine  physical  type,  is  alert,  quick  to  put 
two  and  two  together,  shrewd  within  the  limits  of  his 
knowledge  and  interest,  but  not  much  given  to  poetry 
or  philosophy.  Experiments  in  education  have  shown, 
however,  that  in  the  Zulu,  and  in  similar  cases,  the 
imaginative  and  reflective  capacities  are  there  all  right. 
One  may  say  that  the  power  of  intelligent  inference 
is  a  universal  human  character,  part  of  the  common 
stock  of  heritable  qualities,  though  it  varies  greatly 
in  its  expression  according  to  educational  opportuni- 
ties, according  to  the  general  pitch  of  the  life  and  ac- 
cording to  diversity  in  the  more  superficial  and  variable 
elements  in  cerebral  endowment.  The  same  holds  in 
regard  to  capacities  for  making  pictures  or  imagery, 
remembering  and  associating  these,  for  building  up 
general  ideas  or  concepts,  and  for  relating  these  ex- 
perimentally to  one  another.  Again  it  seems  legiti- 


52  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

mate  to  say  that  our  common  human  inheritance  in- 
cludes a  number  of  fundamental  appetites  and  in- 
stincts which  we  share  with  all  our  fellows.  Here 
more  than  in  the  field  of  intelligence,  we  recognise 
the  touch  of  common  nature  that  makes  all  mankind 
kin.  Among  the  fundamental  appetites  are  such  as 
hunger  and  love.  Among  the  fundamental  instincts 
are  such  as  the  self -preservative  instinct  to  avoid 
danger  and  resist  assault;  the  maternal  instinct  to 
care  for  offspring;  and  the  herd  instinct  or  kin 
instinct  leading  to  gregariousness  and  solidarity. 
These  instincts  are  very  generalised  in  contrast  to  the 
particularised  instincts  of,  say,  ants  and  bees,  for 
intelligent  control  has  in  big-brained  organisms  taken 
the  place  of  instinctive  guidance.  In  Man,  in  par- 
ticular, the  old-established  hereditary  instinctive  pre- 
dispositions have  an  impulsive  rather  than  a  directive 
role.  The  great  difference  between  man  and  man  as 
regards  instinctive  predispositions  is  in  part  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  instincts  are  nowadays  in  great  part 
under-currents  in  Man;  they  have  to  work  their  way 
up  through  upper  currents  of  controlled  thought  which 
differ  greatly  with  individuals.  In  this  connection  a 
middle  course  must  be  found  between  ignoring  the 
part  which  the  instinctive  under-currents  play  in  hu- 
man life  and  depreciating  the  controlling  efficacy  of 
thoughtful  consideration.  It  seems  that  all  normal 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       53 

human  beings  have  these  fundamental  instincts.  Even 
St.  Anthony  does  not  get  away  from  sex-impulses,  and 
the  call  of  kinship  echoes  in  the  hermit's  cave.  Many 
1  old  maids ',  as  they  are  called,  are  supremely  ma- 
ternal, and  the  crusty  bachelor  has  often  a  love  of 
children  that  even  a  philoprogenitive  father  might 
envy.  The  possibility  of  shunting,  transforming,  sym- 
bolising, transfiguring  instinctive  impulses  which  are 
not  directly  satisfied,  is  well  known;  and  it  strengthens 
our  faith  in  our  humanity  that  while  the  thwarting  of 
fundamental  instinctive  impulses  may  lead  to  morbid 
repression,  it  sometimes  leads  to  ennoblement.  The 
psychical  inheritance  includes,  besides  intellectual 
capacities  and  instinctive  predispositions,  an  emotional 
endowment.  This  expresses  itself  in  such  emotions  as 
courage  and  fear,  joy  and  sorrow,  sympathy  and 
jealousy.  The  aesthetic  emotion  is  a  good  example  of 
a  well-defined  hereditary  human  character  which 
varies  greatly  in  intensity  and  refinement,  but  seems 
to  be  practically  universal. 

(b)  Rather  different  from  the  old  established  bodily 
and  mental  characters  which  we  may  almost  call  spe- 
cific characters  of  Homo  sapiens,  there  are  features  or 
traits  of  a  less  fundamental,  more  superficial  sort,  of 
later  evolution,  such  as  the  colour  of  the  eyes,  the  shape 
of  the  nose  and  the  ear,  the  proportions  of  the  lips,  the 
kind  of  hair,  the  type  of  hand,  and  so  on.  The  general 


54  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

specific  organisation  is  very  constant,  but  the  minor  fea- 
tures differ  greatly  from  race  to  race,  from  stock  to 
stock,  just  as  the  decorations  on  a  series  of  buildings 
may  be  diverse  though  the  general  architectural  style 
or  plan  is  the  same  in  all.  Some  of  the  minor  features 
which  are  crisply  defined  behave  in  a  remarkable  way  in 
inheritance,  refusing  to  blend  with  corresponding  but 
contrasted  characters.  They  are  continuous  from  one 
generation  to  another,  appearing  in  more  or  less  intact 
expression  in  a  certain  proportion  of  the  offspring,  and 
being  quite  absent  from  others.  They  behave  like 
entities,  as  if  (in  typical  cases)  they  could  neither  be 
split  up  nor  blended.  They  have  been  compared  to 
chemical  radicles  (e.g.  NH4)  which  can  enter  into 
many  different  associations,  but  behave  as  unities. 
Such  characters  are  called  "  unit-characters  "  or  Men- 
delian  characters.  Recent  work  has  shown  that  many 
of  our  more  superficial  characters  are  of  this  nature. 
We  are  in  some  measure  composed  of  strands  of  "  unit- 
character  ",  a  familiar  instance  being  the  colour  of  the 
eye.  It  is  possible  that  the  stable  fundamental  block 
of  the  inheritance  (the  specific  hereditary  organisa- 
tion) is  made  up  of  a  very  large  number  of  coherent 
unit-characters  firmly  linked  together.  To  some  stu- 
dents of  heredity  it  seems  rather  as  if  the  stable 
foundation  block  were  made  up  of  a  blend  of  an- 
cestral contributions.  In  either  case,  the  result  of 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       55 

ages  upon  ages  of  sifting  has  been  there  is  now  little 
or  no  alternative  as  regards  the  general  human  fea- 
tures. It  is  therefore  probable  that  the  variations,  e.g. 
in  the  human  brain,  that  the  future  may  have  in  store 
for  mankind  must  be  congruent  with  the  general  style 
of  brain  architecture  which  has,  as  it  were,  come  to 
stay  forever. 

There  is  a  growing  body  of  evidence  that  some  of 
our  mental  peculiarities  belong  to  the  unit-character 
type.  Thus  there  is  a  quite  definite  '  roving  '  impulse, 
distinguishable  from  mere  restlessness  or  lack  of  per- 
severance, which  "  runs  in  families  ".  The  same  may 
be  true  of  well-defined  temperaments — e.g.  excitable 
or  nervous,  phlegmatic  or  quiet;  of  curious  mental 
twists  that  make  their  possessors  see  everything 
crooked;  and  of  those  agreeable  idiosyncrasies  and 
originalities  which  add  a  charm  to  life. 

It  is  not,  of  course,  to  be  assumed  that  any  char- 
acter is  a  unit-character;  that  has  to  be  proved  by 
its  behaviour  in  inheritance.  It  looks  as  if  even 
our  more  superficial  features,  whether  bodily  or 
mental,  included  more  than  non-blending  unit-char- 
acters. For  there  are  some,  such  as  colour  of  hair 
and  colour  of  skin,  which  appear  to  blend  when  con- 
trasts are  paired.  Thus,  the  mulatto  apparently  illus- 
trates, as  to  colour  of  skin,  a  blend  of  the  skin  colour 
characteristics  of  the  white  father  and  the  black 


56  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

mother.  We  say  "  apparently  "  because  the  matter  is 
not  nearly  so  simple  as  it  seems. 

(c)  Thirdly,  besides  the  old-established  racial  char- 
acters and  the  well-defined  but  more  superficial  traits 
that  run  in  families,  the  inheritance  includes  individual 
peculiarities  or  idiosyncrasies.  These  new  departures, 
novelties,  or  variations  are  of  great  interest — they  form 
the  raw  material  of  progress,  or  of  retrogression,  or 
of  merely  indifferent  change.  They  vary  from 
trivial  peculiarities,  such  as  crinkly  hair,  to  momen- 
tous mutations,  such  as  we  see  in  genius.  Some 
are  rather  quantitative,  a  little  more  of  this  and  a 
little  less  of  that;  others  are  rather  qualitative,  some 
novel  pattern.  They  are  individual  variations. 
Whether  they  have  come  to  stay  or  not,  time  will 
show. 

Under  the  breeder's  supervision  a  single  variant  may 
become  the  source  of  a  constant  race,  as  was  the  case 
with  the  once  famous  short-legged  Ancon  sheep 
(1791),  the  American  Polled  Herefords  (1889),  tne 
Californian  seedless  orange,  and  so  on.  To  obtain  a 
pure  race  of  wheat  or  the  like,  e.g.  with  qualities  suited 
for  particular  soils,  it  is  now  usual,  as  at  Nilsson's 
Institute  at  Svalov  in  Sweden,  to  start  from  the  seeds 
of  one  promising  head.  But  it  does  not  always  happen 
that  a  variant  in  itself  very  promising  is  able  to  '  hand 
on '  its  good  qualities  to  its  offspring.  In  Prof.  Ray- 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       57 

mond  Pearl's  work  on  good-laying  hens  (up  to  the 
2oo-eggs-a-year  standard)  it  was  found  necessary  to 
make  sure  not  merely  that  the  mother  hen  was  a  very 
good  layer,  but  that  her  daughters  were  so  likewise. 
An  individual  excellence  is  not  necessarily  continued  in 
the  next  generation. 

§  3.   Fundamental  Facts  of  Heredity. 

(1)  Heredity  is  a  flesh  and  blood  linkage,  a  ger- 
minal continuity,  binding  generation  to  generation.    It 
is   a  term  for  a  biological  relation  of  offspring  to 
ancestry.    It  has  nothing  directly  to  do  with  tradition 
or  with  culture-legacies  handed  on  outside  the  or- 
ganism. 

(2)  The  natural  inheritance  is  carried,  we  cannot 
picture  how,  in  the  form  of  initiatives,  or  factors,  or 
determinants   in   the   egg-cell    (the   ovum)    and   the 
sperm-cell    (the   spermatozoon)    which   unite   at   the 
beginning  of  each  new  life. 

(3)  The   inheritance,   contained   implicitly   in   the 
fertilised  egg-cell,  requires  an  appropriate  nurture  if 
it  is  to  develop  aright.     Development  is  the  making 
visible  or  actual  of  what  has  lain  in  the  germ-cell  in 
an  invisible  or  potential  state. 

(4)  In  mammals,  and  in  some  other  cases,  e.g. 
flowering  plants,  the  developing  embryo  may  be  influ- 
enced very  early  by  its  immediate  surroundings  within 


58  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

the  mother,  but  that  influence  is  part  of  nurture,  not 
part  of  the  hereditary  nature. 

(5)  Apart    from    a    few    exceptional    cases,    e.g. 
virgin  birth  (parthenogenesis),  which  is  restricted  in 
natural  conditions  to  backboneless  animals,  every  in- 
heritance is  dual,  partly  paternal  and  partly  maternal. 
The  mother  certainly  contributes  in  the  cytoplasm  or 
the  extra-nuclear  substance  of  the  egg-cell  the  greater 
part  of  the  initial  building  material,  the  sperm-cell 
being  very  much  more  minute.    It  is  highly  probable 
that  many  old-established  generic  characters  have  their 
vehicle  in  the  cytoplasm  of  the  ovum.     As  regards 
those  hereditary  items  which  are  carried  in  the  nuclei 
of  the  sex-cells,  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that  the 
nuclear-bodies    (chromosomes)   are  usually  equal  or 
nearly  equal  in  number  in  sperm  and  ovum.     Each 
kind  of  organism  has  a  definite  number  of  chromo- 
somes which  is  usually  the  same  in  all  the  cells,  except 
the  unripe  ova  and  sperms,  which  have  double  the 
normal  number.    There  is  nothing  in  the  number  itself, 
which  is  the  same  in  quite  unrelated  organisms,  e.g. 
white  man  and  slug;  the  point  is  the  constancy  of  the 
number. 

(6)  The  paternal  and  maternal  contributions  form 
the  warp  and  woof  of  the  web  which  composes  the 
organism,  and  each  sex-cell  carries  a  complete  set  of 
the  essential  hereditary  qualities.     In  the  course  of 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       59 

development,  however,  the  offspring  may  i  take  after  ' 
one  side  of  the  house  as  regards  one  character,  and 
may  '  favour '  the  other  side  of  the  house  as  regards 
some  other  character.  It  may  be  like  the  father  in  its 
hands,  like  its  mother  in  its  hair.  Thus  we  have  to 
distinguish  between  the  inheritance  or  l  genetic  com- 
position '  which  the  organism  has  to  start  with,  and 
the  expression  of  that  inheritance  in  development. 

(7)  Strictly  speaking,  an  inheritance  is  multiple  as 
well  as  dual,  for  there  may  be  demonstrable  ancestral 
contributions  which  did  not  find  expression  in  the 
parent.    Resemblance  to  a  grandparent  is  a  common 
and,  as  we  shall  see,  readily  explicable  phenomenon. 
Characters  sometimes  lie  latent  for  a  generation,  or 
for  several  generations,  which  again  brings  out  the  dif- 
ference between  the  implicit  inheritance  and  the  de- 
velopmental expression  of  it. 

(8)  The  largest  fact  of  heredity  is  that  like  tends 
to  beget  like.     The  hereditary  relation  between  suc- 
cessive generations  is  such  that  a  general  resemblance 
is  sustained.    A  particular  kind  of  organisation,  asso- 
ciated with  a  particular  kind  of  activity,  persists  from 
generation  to  generation.    These  are  simply  different 
ways  of  saying  the  same  thing;  that  all  inborn  char- 
acters  (except  sterility)   are  heritable  and  may  be 
handed  on.     But  "may"  cannot  be  changed  into 
"  must ",  for  the  unexpected  often  happens. 


60  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

§  4.   Recent  Advances  in  the  Study  of  Heredity. 

There  are  three  modern  ideas  that  have  profoundly 
influenced  our  views  of  heredity,  (a)  The  first  is  the 
idea  of  germinal  continuity ,  which  we  owe  especially 
to  Sir  Francis  Galton  and  Prof.  August  Weismann. 
The  reason  for  like  begetting  like  is  to  be  found  in  the 
persistence  of  a  specific  organisation  through  a  lineage 
of  unspecialised  germ-cells.  The  germinal  material  of 
the  fertilised  ovum  forms  the  basis  of  the  building 
material  out  of  which  the  body  of  the  offspring  is 
built  up,  undergoing,  in  a  puzzling  way,  not  only  a 
huge  increase  in  quantity  but  a  qualitative  differentia- 
tion into  nerve  and  muscle,  blood  and  bone.  But 
while  this  is  going  on,  a  residue  of  the  germinal  ma- 
terial is  kept  intact  and  unspecialised  to  form  the 
beginning  of  the  reproductive  organs  of  the  offspring, 
whence  may  be  launched  in  due  time  another  similar 
vessel  on  the  adventurous  voyage  of  life.  The  sex- 
cells  produced  in  the  reproductive  organs  are  the 
descendants  of  unspecialised  embryonic  cells,  which 
did  not  share  in  body-making,  which  did  not  become 
specialised.  In  short,  these  germ-cells  remain  like  the 
fertilised  egg-cell  from  which  the  organism  started; 
they  continue  the  specific  tradition  intact.  As  it  has 
been  put,  instead  of  saying  that  the  hen  gives  rise  to 
the  egg,  we  should  say  the  egg  gives  rise  to  the  hen 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       61 

and  to  the  eggs  which  the  hen's  body  contains.  So 
we  see  that  the  parent  is  rather  the  trustee  of  the 
germ-plasm  (the  germinal  basis  of  the  specific  organi- 
sation) than  the  producer  of  the  child.  In  a  new  sense 
the  child  is  a  chip  of  the  old  block.  Or  as  Professor 
Bergson  puts  it  in  less  static  metaphor,  "  Life  is  like 
a  current  passing  from  germ  to  germ  through  the 
medium  of  a  developed  organism."  This  continuity  of 
the  germ-plasm,  by  cell-division  after  cell-division, 
along  a  lineage  of  unspecialised  cells,  explains  the 
inertia  of  the  main  mass  of  the  inheritance,  which  is 
carried  on,  as  we  have  seen,  with  little  change,  as  it 
were  en  bloc,  from  generation  to  generation.  Men  do 
not  gather  grapes  off  thorns,  or  figs  off  thistles. 
Similar  material  to  start  with;  similar  conditions  in 
which  to  develop;  therefore  like  begets  like. 

(b)  The  second  very  important  modern  idea,  which 
we  owe  to  Mendel  and  Professor  de  Vries,  is  that  of 
unit-characters  already  alluded  to.  Some  have  com- 
pared its  importance  to  that  of  the  Atomic  Theory  in 
chemistry.  An  inheritance  is,  in  part,  built  up  of 
numerous,  more  or  less  clear-cut,  crisply  defined,  non- 
blending  characters,  which  are  continued  in  some  of 
the  descendants  as  discrete  wholes,  neither  merging 
nor  dividing.  A  definite  type  of  very  intelligent  dwarf 
has  been  known  to  reappear  for  four  or  five  genera- 
tions. The  persistence  of  the  Hapsburg  lip  is  a  well- 


62  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

known  instance  of  a  trivial  unit-character  that  came 
and  stayed.  An  abnormal  peculiarity  like  having  six 
fingers  may  defy  dislodgment  for  six  generations. 
These  unit-characters  or  Mendelian  characters  behave 
as  if  they  were  discrete  entities  which  can  be  shuffled 
about  and  distributed  to  the  offspring  in  some  degree 
independently  of  one  another  and  which  can  be  re- 
united in  new  combinations.  They  must  be  repre- 
sented in  the  germ-cell  by  '  factors  '  or  '  determinants  ' 
or  organisational  peculiarities  of  some  sort.  One  of 
the  latest  names  for  a  hereditary  '  factor  '  is  c  gene '. 

(c)  The  third  very  important  idea  that  has  been 
brought  into  prominence  in  modern  times  is  that 
bodily  modifications — dints  and  imprints — acquired 
by  an  individual  as  the  direct  result  of  peculiarities  in 
nurture,  are  not  readily  transmissible,  if  at  all,  and, 
in  any  case,  are  not  usually  transmitted.  Every  care 
must  be  taken  to  avoid  dogmatism,  but  it  is  certain 
that  individually  acquired  modifications  (in  the  tech- 
nical sense)  are  not  commonly  transmitted  to  any 
observable  extent.  We  must  go  further  and  say  that 
it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  find  incontrovertible  evi- 
dence showing  that  they  may  be  even  occasionally 
transmitted. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  return  to  the  subject  when 
we  discuss  '  Nurture ';  in  the  meantime  the  dominant 
scientific  opinion  may  be  stated,  that  in  our  discus- 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       63 

sions  and  reflections  on  heredity  we  are  not  warranted 
in  taking  for  granted,  as  has  often  been  done  in  the 
past,  that  modifications  individually  acquired  by  an 
organism  can  be  handed  on  to  its  offspring,  either  as 
such  or  in  any  representative  degree.  An  individual 
living  creature  often  exhibits  modifications  directly 
due  to  some  peculiarity  or  change  in  surroundings, 
food,  activities,  habits,  use  and  disuse,  and  so  on. 
These  t  modifications ',  as  they  are  now  technically 
called,  are  structural  changes  that  persist  after  the 
inducing  conditions  have  ceased  to  operate.  Thus  a 
lifelong  tanning  of  the  skin,  a  callosity  on  a  much 
pressed  part  of  the  skin,  a  strengthening  of  a  muscle 
by  use,  a  degeneration  of  a  muscle  by  disuse,  an  ac- 
cumulation of  fat  as  the  result  of  gluttony,  a  strain 
of  the  eyes  through  overwork,  may  serve  to  illustrate 
6  modifications  '.  They  are  often  very  important  for 
the  individual,  both  for  good  and  ill,  but  they  do  not 
seem  of  much,  if  any,  direct  racial  importance,  since 
the  evidence  of  their  transmission  is  rare  or  unsatis- 
factory, or  emphatically  absent.  They  are  to  be 
thought  of  as  dints^  impressed  from  without,  and  con- 
trasted with  outcomes  expressed  from  within.  The 
latter  are  called  variations,  mutations,  or  new  depar- 
tures, and  are  often  highly  transmissible.  They  result 
from  changefulness  inherent  in  the  germ-cells,  pro- 
voked into  expression,  it  may  be,  by  penetrating 


64  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

stimuli  from  without,  and  they  form  the  raw  material 
of  organic  evolution.  Whether  we  believe  in  the  trans- 
missibility  of  '  dints '  or  not,  we  know  that  they  are 
not  commonly  transmitted  in  any  measurable  manner. 
We  also  know  that  it  is  of  practical  as  well  as  theo- 
retical importance  to  distinguish  what  is  due  to  pecu- 
liarities of  '  nurture '  from  what  is  the  expression  of 
c  inborn '  nature. 

§  5.   Different  Modes  of  Inheritance. 

(a)  In  starting  a  breed  of  domesticated  animals, 
such  as  Polled  Angus  cattle  or  Ancon  sheep,  the 
breeder  has  often  had  to  begin  with  a  very  small  num- 
ber of  similar  forms.  There  has  to  be  close  inbreeding. 
If  fresh  blood  is  introduced  and  offspring  are  born 
which  do  not  conform  to  the  desired  type,  they  are  at 
once  got  rid  of.  This  elimination  of  divergent  forms 
and  this  inbreeding  of  similar  forms  may  be  continued 
for  many  years  until  a  large  l  pure-bred  '  herd  is  estab- 
lished. It  is  marked  by  great  uniformity  and  con- 
stancy of  character.  As  regards  the  features  to  which 
the  breeder  has  attended,  each  individual  has  what  all 
the  rest  have,  none  has  what  the  others  have  not. 
Every  one  is  as  good  as  his  neighbour.  They  are  pure- 
bred and  they  breed  true.  If  we  could  see  into  the 
invisible  architecture  of  the  germ-cells  we  should  find 
that  each  had  the  same  equipment  of  similar  '  factors  ' 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       65 

or  '  determinants  '  or  '  genes  '.  If  two  members  of  the 
herd  are  paired,  or  if  the  members  of  two  herds  of 
similar  history  are  paired,  the  offspring  are  like  the 
parents.  Now,  among  the  various  modes  of  inher- 
itance this  is  one  extreme — strong  hereditary  resem- 
blance, complete  as  regards  many  characters,  and  ap- 
pearing to  the  inexperienced  eye  complete  through  and 
through. 

(b)  Another  phenomenon,  however,  is  the  emer- 
gence of  something  distinctively  new.  An  offspring  is 
born  that  is  in  some  respects  very  unlike  its  parents 
and  its  kindred.  It  exhibits  some  novel  pattern,  some 
new  departure,  a  qualitative  variation  or  mutation.  In 
mankind  this  is  illustrated  by  children  with  marked 
originality,  with  great  mathematical  or  musical  ability, 
or  with  less  desirable  idiosyncrasies. 

DIGRESSION  ON  THE  ORIGIN  OF  NOVELTIES. 

The  conditions  of  the  appearance  of  these  novelties 
are  not  known,  but  the  problem  is  the  subject  of  inter- 
esting speculations.  There  is  no  great  difficulty  in 
understanding  how  quantitative  variations  may  arise — 
a  little  more  of  this  and  a  little  less  of  that — for  the 
germ-cells  go  through  a  complicated  process  of  matura- 
tion in  which  the  number  of  nuclear-bodies  or  chromo- 
somes is  reduced  to  half  the  normal  number,  so  that 
when  the  sperm-cell  and  the  egg-cell  unite  in  fertili- 


66  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

sation  the  normal  number  is  restored.  Now,  if  these 
nuclear-bodies  or  chromosomes  be  vehicles  (or  the 
vehicles)  of  the  factors  of  the  hereditary  characters 
(or  some  of  them)  the  numerical  reduction  in  the 
course  of  the  ripening  of  the  germ-cells  may  be  a 
condition  of  variation.  If  we  compare  the  nuclear- 
bodies  or  chromosomes  to  a  pack  of  cards,  there  is  in 
maturation  a  shuffling  of  the  cards  and  a  division  of 
the  pack  into  two  half-packs.  In  the  case  of  the  ovum 
one  half-pack  is  always  lost  altogether.  In  fertilisa- 
tion two  half-packs  are  brought  together  to  make  a 
new  whole-pack.  The  metaphor  of  the  shuffling  of  the 
cards  may  serve  without  further  detail  to  suggest  how 
quantitative  variations  might  readily  arise  by  the  drop- 
ping out  of  factors  in  the  process  of  maturation.  So 
one  might  try  to  account  for  a  hornless  calf  in  a 
horned  race,  or  for  an  albino  child. 

It  is  well  known  that  novelties  sometimes  follow  the 
crossing  of  two  dissimilar  forms,  and  this  serves  as  a 
basis  for  the  theory  that  the  permutations  and  com- 
binations involved  in  the  fertilisation  of  the  egg-cell  by 
a  sperm-cell  of  somewhat  different  genetic  history  may 
account  for  the  emergence  of  new  patterns. 

Experiments  show  that  a  single-celled  organism — 
a  Protozoon  or  Protophyte — may  be  changed  by 
changes  in  the  medium  in  which  it  lives.  Similarly  it 
may  be  that  the  egg-cells  or  sperm-cells  within  the 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       67 

body  of  the  parents  are  influenced  by  changes  in  the 
complex  medium  (the  blood  or  the  lymph)  by  which 
they  are  kept  alive. 

There  is  also  some  very  suggestive  evidence  that 
environmental  influences  of  a  searching  sort,  such  as 
changes  of  climate  and  food,  may  saturate  through  the 
organism  and  act  as  variational  stimuli  on  the  germ- 
cells,  pulling  the  trigger  of  their  changefulness.  It 
may  be  in  this  way  that  some  poisons  are  able  to 
exert  a  more  or  less  direct  deteriorative  influence  on 
the  germ-cells  and  thus  on  the  next  generation. 

It  may  also  be  that  since  a  germ-cell  is  a  living  cell 
with  a  very  complicated  endowment  of  hereditary 
factors,  it  spontaneously  experiments  with  these,  ar- 
ranging them  in  different  ways,  just  as  a  slipper- 
animalcule  may  break  down  and  reorganise  its  nuclear 
structures,  just  as  an  arenaceous  Foraminifer  may 
apparently  pick  and  choose  external  materials— micro- 
scopic pebbles,  sponge  spicules,  mica  platelets,  and  so 
on  in  building  up  its  external  shell.  But,  as  we  have 
confessed,  biologists  are  only  nibbling  at  the  problem 
of  the  origin  of  the  distinctively  new.  Applying  this 
to  mankind,  we  see  that  it  is  impossible  to  suggest  any 
recipe  for  the  production  of  genius.  At  the  same  time, 
it  seems  permissible  to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  mediocrity 
mating  with  precisely  similar  mediocrity.  Though  a 
happy  marriage  usually  implies  a  certain  community 


68  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

of  taste  and  conviction,  there  is  much  to  be  said  for 
what  is  in  point  of  fact  very  frequent — namely,  the 
marriage  of  dissimilars. 

It  is  likely  enough  that  true  genius  is  the  result  of 
a  fortunate  merging  of  two  fine  inheritances,  the  result 
being  an  unusual  intensification  of  certain  qualities, 
and  something  of  a  new  pattern  without  there  being 
disharmony.  Of  high  importance  as  regards  the  race 
is  the  mating  of  the  wholesome,  well-balanced,  vigor- 
ous types,  with  at  least  a  spark  of  originality.  Other 
things  equal,  we  should  expect  genius  to  result  from 
such  unions  rather  than  from  others. 

Modes  of  Inheritance  (Continued). 

To  return,  however,  from  this  digression  to  the  main 
line  of  discourse,  we  have  taken  account  of  two  ex- 
treme modes  of  inheritance — (a)  almost  complete 
hereditary  resemblance,  and  (b)  marked  variation  in 
the  offspring.  Between  these  two  extremes  there  are 
perhaps  three  modes  of  inheritance:  blending  or  aver- 
aging, alternative  or  Mendelian,  and  reversionary  or 
harking  back. 

(c)  Blending  inheritance  is  a  descriptive  term  for 
cases  where  certain  characters  in  the  offspring  appear 
to  illustrate  an  intimate  mingling  of  the  corresponding 
paternal  and  maternal  characters.  Thus,  though  the 
case  is  not  so  simple  as  it  looks,  a  mulatto  is  often 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       69 

regarded  as  a  blend  as  far  as  skin  colour  is  concerned. 
In  crosses  between  long-eared  lop  rabbits  and  a  short- 
eared  breed,  Professor  Castle  found  that  the  offspring 
were  intermediate  in  length  of  ears  and  in  a  number 
of  skeletal  measurements.  Many  plant  hybrids  are 
very  exact  blends  of  their  parents,  and  the  same  mode 
has  been  well  illustrated  in  crossing  two  cockatoos 
belonging  to  different  genera. 

(d)  Mendelian  inheritance  has  to  do  with  unit-char- 
acters and  their  distribution  in  the  progeny.  If  a 
normal  mouse  is  crossed  with  a  Japanese  waltzing 
mouse,  all  the  hybrid  offspring  (first  filial  generation,) 
FI,  are  normal.  Normal  behaviour  or  its  factor  is  said 
to  be  dominant  as  compared  with  waltzing  behaviour 
or  its  factor,  which  is  spoken  of  as  recessive.  If  the 
hybrids  be  inbred,  or  bred  with  others  of  similar 
lineage,  about  a  quarter  of  the  progeny  are  waltzing 
mice,  and  these  waltzers  might  be  sold  as  '  pure ' 
waltzers — although  both  their  parents  and  one  of  their 
grandparents  showed  the  normal  behaviour.  The  rest 
of  the  progeny  in  this  second  filial  generation  (F2) 
appear  to  be  quite  normal,  but  experiment  shows  that 
about  a  third  of  them  are  l  pure  '  normals,  while  about 
two-thirds  are  like  the  hybrid  generation  FI,  with  every 
appearance  of  being  normal,  but  with  the  waltzing 
character  latent — up  the  animal's  sleeve,  as  it  were.  If 
the  pure  normals,  or,  as  they  are  technically  called, 


70  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

"  pure  dominants,"  are  bred  together  or  with  others  like 
themselves,  they  will  yield  again  the  proportions  ob- 
served in  the  second  filial  generation,  namely,  25  per 
cent,  pure  normals  plus  50  per  cent,  impure  normals 
and  25  per  cent,  pure  recessives.  Or,  using  the  con- 
tractions D  and  R  for  dominant  and  recessive  respec- 
tively, the  Mendelian  formula  for  the  result  of  crossing 
two  pure-bred  organisms  differing  in  a  pair  of  con- 
trasted characters  is  DXR  =  D(R).  But  if  the 
D  (R)'s  be  mated,  the  result  will  be  25  per  cent. 
D  +'  50  per  cent.  D(R),  +  25  per  cent  R. 

One  of  the  cases  that  Mendel  began  with  was  that 
of  two  pure-bred  races  of  peas  which  differed  in 
stature — a  giant  race  and  a  dwarf  race.  When  these 
were  crossed  the  offspring  were  not  intermediates,  like 
those  of  the  long-eared  and  short-eared  rabbits  already 
mentioned,  they  were  all  tall.  Thus  Mendel  spoke  of 
tallness  as  dominant  and  dwarfness  as  recessive  in  this 
case.  When  the  hybrid  tall  peas  were  left  to  self- 
fertilise  (as  happens  in  peas,  corresponding  to  inbreed- 
ing in  animals),  the  members  of  the  second  filial  gen- 
eration (F2)  were  with  remarkable  exactness  in  the 
following  proportions — 25  per  cent,  pure  tails,  + 
50  per  cent,  impure  tails,  -f1  25  per  cent,  pure 
dwarfs. 

The  two  cases  we  have  instanced  illustrate  what  is 
called  complete  dominance.  That  is  to  say,  the 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       71 

offspring  of  the  normal  mice  and  the  waltzing  mice 
were  all  normal;  the  offspring  of  the  tall  peas  and 
the  dwarf  peas  were  all  tails.  But  it  is  not  necessary 
that  the  dominance  in  Mendelian  inheritance  should 
be  complete.  Thus  if  a  Black  and  a  White  Andalusian 
fowl  be  crossed,  the  progeny  are  what  are  called  Blue 
Andalusians,  illustrating  incomplete  dominance.  These 
Blue  Andalusians  might  be  hastily  regarded  as  Blends, 
but  the  erroneousness  of  such  an  interpretation  is  evi- 
dent when  Blue  Andalusians  are  paired  with  Blue 
Andalusians,  for  then  they  yield  50  per  cent.  Blacks 
and  50  per  cent.  Whites.  This  could  never  be  the 
result  of  pairing  two  similar  Blends.  This  simple 
example  must  serve,  however,  to  suggest  that  results 
which  have  been  described  as  Blending  Inheritance 
may  turn  out  to  be  cases  of  incomplete  dominance  in 
Mendelian  Inheritance.  It  is  necessary  to  have  infor- 
mation in  regard  to  the  F2  generation.  Another  point 
must  be  understood.  The  original  parents  may  differ 
from  one  another  in  two  contrasted  characters  (tech- 
nically called  allelomorphs),  such  as  tallness  and 
dwarfness,  yellow  seeds  and  green  seeds,  short  hair 
and  Angora  hair;  or  they  may  differ  inasmuch  as  the 
one  has  a  unit-character  which  the  other  has  not,  as 
we  see  in  cattle  with  or  without  horns,  fowls  with  or 
without  crest,  wheat  with  or  without  beard,  and  so  on. 
The  two  kinds  of  contrast  will  work  out  in  the  same 


72  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

kind  of  result, — the  unit-character  that  is  present  may 
act  as  a  dominant  or  recessive  to  its  own  absence. 

It  must  also  be  pointed  out  that  the  two  parents 
belonging  to  two  pure-bred  races  are  likely  to  differ 
from  one  another  as  regards  several  distinct  sets  of 
contrasted  characters,  and  that  this  will  necessarily 
complicate  results.  Thus  Mendel  crossed  a  Tall 
Yellow-seeded  Pea  with  a  dwarf  green-seeded  Pea, 
Tallness  (T)  and  Yellowness  (Y)  being  dominants  in 
relation  to  dwarfness  (d)  and  greenness  (g),  which 
are  in  this  case  recessives.  The  hybrid  offspring 
(Fx)  will  all  be  Tall  with  Yellow  seeds  (say  TY). 
But  what  will  be  the  nature  of  the  second  filial  gen- 
eration? If  we  suppose,  for  simplicity's  sake,  that 
there  are  16  of  them,  12  of  these  must  be  Tall  and 
4  dwarf.  But  of  the  12  Tails,  9  must  have  Yellow 
seeds  and  3  green  seeds.  And  of  the  dwarfs,  3  must 
have  Yellow  seeds  and  i  green  seeds.  So  the  formula 
will  run:— QTY  +  3Tg  +  3^Y  +  idg. 

One  of  the  diagrammatic  examples  of  a  unit-char- 
acter in  Man  is  night-blindness.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of 
the  eye,  apparently  associated  with  the  absence  of 
visual  purple  in  the  retina.  Those  affected  by  the 
peculiarity  find  it  difficult  to  see  in  dim  light.  There 
are  records  of  an  occurrence  of  night-blindness  in  one 
Jean  Nougaret  in  1647,  and  of  its  regular  recurrence 
in  a  certain  proportion  of  his  descendants  for  more 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       73 

than  three  centuries.  No  normal  member  of  the 
lineage  who  married  a  normal  type  had  any  night- 
blindness  among  his  descendants.  The  character  is 
either  there  or  not  there. 

The  inheritance  of  eye-colour  is  on  Mendelian  lines, 
and  the  mode  is  well  illustrated  in  the  case  of 
brachydactylism,  where  all  the  fingers  are  like  thumbs 
in  having  two  joints  instead  of  three.  What  is  known 
as  presenile  cataract  seems  to  be  a  Mendelian  char- 
acter, and  so  are  certain  kinds  of  feeble-mindedness 
and  epilepsy.  A  reference  to  eye-colour  may  be 
useful. 

When  there  is  abundant  pigment  in  the  iris,  the  eyes 
are  brown;  when  the  factor  or  determiner  for  brown 
is  not  part  of  the  inheritance  the  eyes  are  blue,  i.e. 
with  little  pigment  in  the  iris.  The  children  of  two 
parents  with  brown-eyed  ancestry  will  have  a  double 
dose  or  duplex  inheritance  of  brown.  The  children  of 
blue-eyed  and  brown-eyed  will  have  weak  brown  pig- 
mentation of  the  iris,  receiving  the  brown  factor  or 
determiner  from  only  one  side  of  the  house,  a  single 
dose  or  simplex  inheritance  of  brown.  If  a  member 
of  a  simplex  stock  marry  a  member  of  a  duplex  stock 
the  children  will  be  half  simplex,  half  duplex,  all 
brown.  If  a  member  of  a  simplex  stock  marry  a 
member  of  a  simplex  stock,  the  children  will  be  in 
the  proportion  of  i  duplex  brown:  2  simplex  brown: 


74  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

i  blue-eyed  nulliplex.  If  a  member  of  a  simplex  stock 
marry  a  blue-eyed  person  half  of  the  children  will  be 
simplex  and  half  blue-eyed  (nulliplex).  And  finally, 
if  blue-eyed  marry  blue-eyed,  all  the  children  will  be 
blue-eyed. 

Increasing  knowledge  of  Mendelian  inheritance  les- 
sens the  impression  of  almost  mechanical  card-shuffling 
which  the  earlier  work  suggested.  Thus  we  know  that 
in  many  cases  there  does  not  seem  to  be  a  random  or 
free  assortment  of  genes  or  factors  among  the  ripening 
germ-cells.  Many  characters  have  been  found  to  keep 
together  in  successive  generations  instead  of  assorting 
freely.  It  looks  as  if  the  genes  sometimes  hung  to- 
gether in  blocks.  This  is  known  as  linkage  and  it  is 
correlated  with  a  remarkable  process  of  crossing  over, 
wherein  there  is  an  interchange  of  blocks  of  genes 
between  a  maternal  and  paternal  pair  of  chromosomes 
when  closely  apposed  to  one  another.  It  seems  clear 
that  a  gene  or  factor  in  the  germ-plasm  may  be  asso- 
ciated with  more  than  one  effect  in  the  body;  that  the 
expression  the  gene  finds  in  development  depends  in 
some  measure  on  the  environmental  conditions;  and 
that  a  particular  character  in  the  body  may  be  the 
product  of  many  genes.  Perhaps  we  have  said  enough 
to  indicate  that  the  Mendelian  theory  admits  of  more 
elasticity  than  it  seemed  at  first  to  tolerate — an  elas- 
ticity which  the  facts  of  the  case  appear  to  demand. 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       75 

(e)  The  mode  of  inheritance  called  reversionary  or 
atavistic  seems  to  be  of  very  rare  occurrence.  It  is 
illustrated  when  a  character  known  to  have  marked 
a  distant  ancestor  remains  latent  for  several  genera- 
tions, and  then  suddenly  finds  expression  again,  like  a 
seed  that  has  been  lying  dormant  for  years  in  an  un- 
cultivated corner  of  a  garden.  It  turns  out,  .however, 
that  many  of  the  i  hark-backs  '  which  have  been  called 
reversions  and  regarded  as  due  to  the  reawakening  of 
a  factor  which  has  been  latent  for  generations,  admit 
of  a  much  simpler  interpretation.  They  may  be  con- 
veniently described  as  '  reversions ',  but  they  are  not 
really  of  that  nature.  For  many  of  them  are  due  to 
arrested  development — to  the  stoppage  of  development 
at  too  early  a  stage,  perhaps  because  of  some  defect 
in  nutrition.  Hare-lip  in  Man  seems  to  be  of  this 
nature — not  a  true  reversion. 

But  many  so-called  '  reversions '  have  another  ex- 
planation, which  we  owe  to  the  Mendelian  school.  A 
strict  reversion  is  due  to  the  reawakening  of  a  char- 
acter which  has  lain  latent  for  ages,  but  what  looks 
like  a  reversion  may  be  due  to  a  coming-together-again 
of  characters  which  have  been  analysed  apart  in  pre- 
vious generations.  When  domesticated  rabbits  of  dif- 
ferent colours  are  bred  together  promiscuously  their 
descendants  tend  to  be  eventually  all  grey  like  the 
wild  rabbit.  "  Darwin  regarded  this  as  a  reversion, 


76  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

and  it  may  still  be  described  as  reversionary;  but  it  is 
not  due  to  the  reassertion  of  long  latent  grey  colouring. 
The  return  to  grey  is  due,  as  the  Mendelian  experi- 
ments show,  to  the  recombination  of  at  least  eight 
colour-ingredients  ('  factors '  or  '  genes ')  that  go  to 
the  make-up  of  the  wild  greyness.  Man  has  sifted 
out  all  the  various  colours  from  the  complex  coloura- 
tion of  the  wild  stock,  and  when  the  long-separated 
items  are  brought  together  again  by  unrestricted 
interbreeding  there  is,  naturally  enough,  a  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  original  grey  colouring  "  (see  the  author's 
Darwinism  and  Human  Life,  p.  147). 

§  6.   Inheritance  and  Disease. 

There  is  much  still  to  be  learned  in  regard  to  the 
inheritance  of  disease,  defects,  abnormalities,  and  the 
like,  but  the  following  propositions  are  probably  justi- 
fiable. 

(a)  The  reappearance  of  a  diseased  condition,  like 
rheumatism,  in  a  lineage,  does  not  prove  that  it  has 
been  transmitted,  or  that  it  is  transmissible.  In  the 
caves  of  Dalmatia,  Carinthia,  and  Carniola  there  is  a 
wan  white  blind  newt  called  Proteus.  It  shows  no 
pigment  in  its  skin,  and  the  only  spot  of  colour  other 
than  white  is  where  the  red  blood  shines  through  the 
delicate  gills.  It  would  seem  to  be  a  very  safe  con- 
clusion to  say  that  Proteus  is  hereditarily  pigmentless. 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       77 

And  yet  if  it  be  exposed  to  light,  it  becomes  rapidly 
dark.  It  is  as  sensitive  as  a  photographic  plate. 
What  is  a-wanting  is  not  in  its  inheritance,  but  in  its 
environment.  Similarly,  stunted  growth  in  infants,  or 
a  succession  of  rickets  generation  after  generation, 
may  imply  defective  nurture  rather  than  defective 
inheritance. 

(b)  Even  when  a  child  is  born  with  symptoms  of, 
or  with  definite  expressions  of  a  disease  (a  condition 
to  which  the  term  congenital  should  be  applied),  it 
does  not  follow  that  the  disease  was  part  of  the  inher- 
itance.   For  there  may  be  microbic  infection  before 
birth,    e.g.   with   the   animal   organism    (Treponema 
pallidum)  that  causes  syphilis.    Similarly,  on  the  other 
side,  there  are  facts  that  seem  to  show  that  when  a 
mammalian  mother  has  been  rendered  artificially  im- 
mune to  a  disease  (by  the  injection  of  an  antitoxin) 
she  may  confer  this  benefit  upon  her  offspring  before 
birth.     But  this  is  an  early  acquirement  on  the  off- 
spring's part,  thanks  to  its  intimate  partnership  with 
its  mother;  it  is  not  strictly  part  of  the  inheritance. 

(c)  An  attempt  must  be  made  to  discriminate  be- 
tween the  inheritance  of  a  definite  disease  and  the 
inheritance  of  a  constitutional  proclivity  or  predisposi- 
tion towards  that  disease.    Microbic  diseases  such  as 
tuberculosis  cannot  be  hereditary,  being  due  to  specific 
infection.     Yet  they  seem  to  run  in  families.     Part 


78  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

of  the  explanation  of  this  may  be  the  persistence  of 
the  same  kind  of  house  and  habit,  and  the  same  abun- 
dance of  opportunity  for  infection;  but  part  of  the 
explanation  may  also  be  the  actual  inheritance  of  a 
predisposition,  e.g.  a  ready  vulnerability  of  internal 
surfaces.  But  the  difficulty  is  to  define  this  predispo- 
sition or  diathesis,  and  to  distinguish  it  from  symptoms 
of  an  early  infection  already  accomplished. 

(d)  The  boundary-line  between  health  and  disease 
is  not  readily  drawn,  but  from  the  biologist's  point  of 
view  disease  means  that  certain  vital  processes   (or 
metabolisms)  are  occurring  out  of  place,  out  of  time, 
or  out  of  tune.    This  disturbance  of  the  wholesome 
routine  may  be  traced  back  and  back  to  some  dis- 
turbance  in   the   organisation   and   activity   of    the 
original  germ-cells.    Such  diseases  are  called  constitu- 
tional or  innate,  and  they  or  predispositions  to  them 
may  be  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation  in 
Man's  sheltered  kingdom.    In  wild  nature  they  are  not 
allowed  to  grip.    In  illustration  of  such  diseased  con- 
ditions we  may  mention  diabetes  (D),  epilepsy  (R), 
feeble-mindedness  (R),  glaucoma  (D).    These  follow 
the  Mendelian  rule.    They  are  marked  (D)  or  (R) 
according  as  they  happen  to  be  dominant  or  recessive 
in  relation  to  normality. 

(e)  There  are  other  diseased  conditions,  however, 
which  are  directly  induced  by  deteriorative  peculiarities 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       79 

in  surroundings,  food,  occupation,  habits,  and  the  like. 
Such  might  well  be  called  modificational  diseases,  e.g. 
the  conditions  brought  about  by  white-lead  poisoning, 
by  over-indulgence  in  alcohol,  by  working  under  great 
atmospheric  pressure,  and  so  on.  If  the  disease  called 
beri-beri  be  due,  as  experts  tell  us,  to  lack  of 
'  vitamines '  in  the  food,  e.g.  to  feeding  almost  exclu- 
sively on  polished  rice  from  which  the  rind  has  been 
removed,  then  it  is  a  good  example  of  a  modificational 
disease.  Now  the  important  point  is,  that  there  is  no 
warrant  for  believing  that  these  modificational  diseases 
are  transmissible.  They  may  reappear  generation 
after  generation  if  the  deteriorative  peculiarities  in 
environment  and  nutrition,  habits  and  occupation  per- 
sist, but  they  are  not  truly  heritable.  It  must  also 
be  noted  that  their  secondary  effects,  on  general  vigour 
for  instance,  may  last  after  the  deteriorative  condi- 
tions have  been  removed.  The  child  of  a  drunken 
father  may  be  hereditarily  handicapped  in  constitution, 
though  he  does  not  inherit  any  particular  modification 
impressed  to  the  father's  body. 

While  it  is  very  important  to  realise  that  modifica- 
tional diseases  do  not  seem  to  be  transmissible,  it  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  the  liability  to  be  modified  some- 
times means  an  innate  constitutional  weakness,  which 
is,  of  course,  transmissible.  In  the  same  way,  it  seems 
sometimes  to  be  true  that  a  slight  constitutional  defect 


8o  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

may  not  become  of  serious  moment  unless  it  be  roused 
through  excess  in  certain  kinds  of  food.  This  is  prob- 
ably true  of  gout.  These  two  considerations  should 
be  thought  over,  for  they  lessen  in  actual  practice  the 
strictness  of  the  biological  contrast  between  innate  and 
acquired,  variational  and  modificational,  peculiarities. 

(/)  A  germinal  disturbance  which  results  in  dishar- 
mony in  the  ordinary  routine  of  health  may  have 
diverse  outcrops  in  different  members  of  a  family,  or 
in  successive  generations.  It  may  also  change  in  the 
time  of  its  outcrop.  Thus  certain  nervous  disorders 
seem  to  appear  earlier  and  earlier  in  successive  genera- 
tions, as  Dr.  F.  W.  Mott  has  emphasised  in  his  Law 
of  Anticipation.  They  may  appear  so  early  that  they 
disappear,  being  fatal  before  birth. 

(g)  Commoner  than  the  inheritance  of  disease  or 
tendencies  to  disease  is  the  inheritance  of  abnormal 
peculiarities,  such  as  colour-blindness,  night-blindness, 
deaf-mutism,  well-proportioned  dwarfness,  brachydac- 
tylism,  polydactylism,  haemophilia,  baldness,  obesity. 

§  7.   Statistical  Study  of  Heredity. 

While  the  great  experimental  work  of  Gregor 
Mendel  lay  buried  in  the  records  of  the  Naturalists' 
Society  of  Brunn,  there  was  developed  in  Britain  a 
statistical  study  of  inheritance,  especially  associated 
with  the  names  of  Sir  Francis  Galton  and  Prof. 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       81 

Karl  Pearson.  It  was  Gallon  who  really  began  to 
study  the  inheritance  of  particular  characters  through 
successive  generations,  and  to  measure  quantitatively 
the  degrees  of  hereditary  resemblance.  Galton  was 
led  to  the  Law  of  Ancestral  Inheritance,  according  to 
which  the  average  contributions  to  each  inherited 
faculty  are  a  half  from  the  parents,  a  quarter  from 
the  grandparents,  an  eighth  from  the  great-grand- 
parents, and  so  on  backwards,  in  the  same  diminishing 
ratio.  "  The  prepotencies  or  sub-potencies  of  par- 
ticular ancestors,  in  any  given  pedigree,  are  eliminated 
by  a  law  which  deals  only  with  average  contribu- 
tions, and  the  varying  prepotencies  of  sex  in  respect 
to  different  qualities  are  also  presumably  eliminated." 
The  ratio  of  parental,  grandparental,  great  grand-pa- 
rental, and  other  average  contributions  worked  out  by 
Pearson  is  different  from  Gal  ton's;  it  is  .6244,  .1988, 

.0630,  etc But  the  general  idea  is  the  same, 

that  inheritances  are  not  interpretable  in  terms  of  the 
parents  only,  but  are  as  if  the  grandparents,  great- 
grandparents,  and  so  on,  made  contributions  dimin- 
ishing in  proportion  to  their  remoteness.  The  law  is 
statistical,  not  physiological. 

Associated  with  the  law  of  ancestral  inheritance  is 
the  law  of  filial  regression,  which  expresses  the  tend- 
ency that  the  average  of  a  character  in  a  number  of 
offspring  has  to  approximate  to  the  mean  of  the  stock. 


82  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

If  parents  differ  widely  from  mediocrity,  their  children 
are  not  likely  to  differ  as  widely.  As  Galton  said, 
"  The  more  bountifully  the  parent  is  gifted  by  nature, 
the  more  rare  will  be  his  good  fortune  if  he  begets 
a  son  who  is  as  richly  endowed  as  himself,  and  still 
more  so  if  he  has  a  son  who  is  endowed  more  largely." 
But  "the  law  is  even-handed;  it  levies  an  equal  suc- 
cession-tax on  the  transmission  of  badness  as  of  good- 
ness. If  it  discountenances  the  extravagant  hope  of  a 
gifted  parent  that  his  children  will  inherit  all  his 
powers,  it  no  less  discountenances  extravagant  fears 
that  they  will  inherit  all  his  weakness  and  disease." 

This  is  an  important  idea,  that  when  we  consider 
numbers,  not  individuals,  there  is  a  notable  inertia. 
Society  tends  to  move  like  a  great  fraternity.  It  is 
not  like  a  class  in  school  where  the  elite  of  the  class 
press  on  eagerly  and  a  long  '  tail '  is  formed.  There 
is  a  tendency  in  society  to  keep  up  an  average,  and 
this  is  not  due  to  any  large  extent  to  the  cutting  off 
of  the  laggards;  it  is  due  to  '  filial  regression '. 

Prof.  Karl  Pearson  gives  a  vivid  concrete  illustra- 
tion in  his  Grammar  of  Science: — "  The  father  with 
a  great  excess  of  the  character  contributes  sons  with 
an  excess,  but  a  less  excess  of  it;  the  father  with  a 
great  defect  of  the  character  contributes  sons  with  a 
defect,  but  less  of  it." 

Regression  is  a  technical  term  which  has  nothing  to 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       83 

do  with  retrogression  or  with  reversion;  it  refers  to  a 
movement  towards  the  mean  of  the  stock,  whether  the 
movement  be  in  the  direction  of  progress  or  the  re- 
verse. The  reason  for  the  regression  is  tersely  stated 
by  Pearson: — "  A  man  is  not  only  the  product  of  his 
father,  but  of  all  his  past  ancestry,  and  unless  very 
careful  selection  has  taken  place,  the  mean  of  that 
ancestry  is  probably  not  far  from  that  of  the  general 
population.  In  the  tenth  generation  a  man  has  (theo- 
retically) 1,024  tenth  great-grandparents.  He  is  even- 
tually the  product  of  a  population  of  this  size,  and 
their  mean  can  hardly  differ  from  that  of  the  general 
population.  It  is  the  heavy  weight  of  this  mediocre 
ancestry  that  causes  the  son  of  an  exceptional  father 
to  regress  towards  the  general  population  mean;  it  is 
the  balance  of  this  sturdy  commonplaceness  which 
enables  the  son  of  a  degenerate  father  to  escape  the 
whole  burden  of  the  parental  ill." 

These  statistical  conclusions  must  be  pondered  over. 
O)  They  are  average  generalisations  for  bodies  of 
people,  not  physiological  conclusions  relating  to  indi- 
viduals. But  of  course  they  sum  up  a  multitude  of 
individual  physiological  facts. 

(b)  They  do  not  apply  to  lineages  where  there  has 
been  close  and  consistent  selection,  e.g.  in  the  range 
of  permissible  marriages. 

(c)  They  certainly  do  not  apply  to  the  inheritance 


84  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

of  Mendelian  unit-characters.  Not  that  there  is  any 
opposition  between  Galtonian  and  Mendelian  laws  of 
inheritance;  they  are  not  antithetic,  but  comple- 
mentary, approaching  the  problem  from  different  sides. 

(d)  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the  laws  are  quite 
sound  as  laws  of  inheritance,  since  they  do  not  seem 
to  have  taken  sufficient  account  of  the  important  fact 
that  resemblances  between  relations  are  often  in  part 
due  to  similar  nurture,  and  are  not  wholly  due  to 
similar  hereditary  nature. 

To  the  statisticians  or  biometricians  we  owe  a  dem- 
onstration of  the  heritability  of  subtle  constitutional 
qualities  like  fecundity  and  longevity,  and  evidence 
that  clearly  defined  mental  and  moral  qualities  may 
be  handed  on  to,  and  distributed  among,  the  offspring, 
just  in  the  same  way  as  bodily  characters.  In  this 
connection  too  we  must  recognise  the  assimilative 
potency  of  similar  nurture,  a  subject  to  which  we  must 
return  in  the  next  chapter. 

LOOKING   FORWARD. 

The  history  of  domestication  and  cultivation  shows 
that  great  results  may  be  achieved  when  Nature  and 
Man  work  into  one  another's  hands.  When  Nature 
supplies  the  raw  material  in  the  form  of  heritable 
variations  and  mutations,  and  Man  supplies  the  sieve, 
whether  by  bringing  similar  desirable  forms  together 


OUR  NATURAL  INHERITANCE       85 

or  by  eliminating  undesirable  variants  whenever  they 
show  face,  great  results  may  ensue.  We  see  this  in 
cereals  and  potatoes,  cattle  and  poultry,  and  in  a  score 
of  other  cases. 

As  we  have  already  noticed  in  the  first  chapter, 
Mendel  put  a  clue — an  Ariadne  thread — into  the  hands 
of  breeders  and  cultivators.  It  is  becoming  increas- 
ingly clear  that  Mendelism  can  enable  a  breeder  or 
cultivator  to  reach  his  desired  end  more  surely,  more 
rapidly,  and  more  economically.  His  new  knowledge 
shows  him  how  desirable  qualities  of  the  unit-character 
type  can  be  grafted  on  to  a  stock,  and  how  undesirable 
qualities  can  be  slipped  off.  Desirable  qualities  are 
continually  welling  forth  from  life's  inexhaustible 
fountain  of  change.  Mendelism  has  shown  the  breeder 
and  cultivator  how  to  utilise  these  more  effectively. 
The  greatest  difficulty  is  with  ourselves.  In  the  eighth 
chapter  we  shall  briefly  discuss  the  question,  What 
is  practicable  in  the  way  of  human  eugenics  in  the 
stricter  sense — the  improvement  of  the  human  breed? 


CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE. 

§  i.  Nature  and  Nurture. — §  2.  Nurture  and  Develop- 
ment.— §  3.  Individually  Acquired  Modifications  and 
Their  Transmissibility . — §  4.  Nurture  of  the  Higher 
Faculties.— §  5.  The  Other  Side  of  Heredity. 

§  i.   Nature  and  Nurture. 

WHEN  Charles  First  was  King  of  England  physi- 
cians knew  of  the  case  of  Jean  Nougaret,  who  suffered 
from  night-blindness,  or  inability  to  see  in  faint  light. 
For  more  than  two  and  a  half  centuries  the  Nougaret 
family-history  has  been  kept — we  know  of  2,000  indi- 
viduals in  ten  generations — and  the  night-blindness 
peculiarity  has  cropped  up  generation  after  generation. 
Though  no  normal  member  of  the  lineage  has  ever 
been  the  vehicle  of  handing  on  the  defect,  the  night- 
blindness  has  persisted  through  the  abnormal  mem- 
bers. It  may  be  absent  from  an  individual,  but  it  does 
not  disappear  from  the  lineage. 

Similarly,  most  of  us  know  of  some  peculiarity,  such 
as  a  curious  shock  of  hair,  persisting  for  several  gen- 

86 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE     87 

erations,  or  of  a  baby  who  is  an  almost  grotesque 
caricature  of  his  grandfather.  In  cases  like  the  last 
the  eye  usually  catches  two  or  three  salient  features 
of  marked  resemblance,  and  these  divert  attention 
from  the  differences.  There  are  characters,  such  as 
peculiarities  of  stature  and  disposition,  which  seem  to 
blend  and  average  out,  but  the  lasting-on  of  pecu- 
liarities is  one  of  the  sure  facts  of  heredity.  Thus 
after  studying  man's  natural  inheritance  for  a  while 
there  grows  upon  us  a  feeling  of  its  inexorableness. 
What  is  bred  in  the  bone  and  imbued  in  the  blood 
has  great  staying  power.  We  see  sturdy  wholesome- 
ness;  we  see,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  iniquities  of 
the  fathers  re-appear  in  their  children  to  the  third  and 
fourth  generation  or  longer. 

But  as  we  dwell  longer  with  the  facts  that  cloud  of 
fatalism  lifts  a  little.  We  begin  to  realise  that,  for  the 
individual  at  least,  there  is  a  potent  life-moulding 
factor  in  '  Nurture ' — that  is  to  say,  in  the  influence 
of  surroundings,  food,  exercise,  occupation,  education, 
company,  habits,  and  so  forth.  Man  is  in  great  part 
born;  he  is  also  in  great  part  made.  Circumstances 
count. 

John  Knox  the  Reformer  and  John  Lyly  the 
Euphuist  both  make  use  of  the  convenient  verbal  con- 
trast between  inborn  or  inherited  '  nature '  and 
extrinsic  or  imprinted  *  nurture ',  and  Shakespeare  in 


88  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

the  Tempest  makes  Prospero  speak  of  Caliban  as  "  a 
devil,  a  born  devil,  on  whose  nature  nurture  will  never 
stick  ".  The  usage  was  made  scientific  by  Sir  Francis 
Galton.  By  '  nature '  in  the  technical  sense  is  meant 
all  that  the  living  creature  in  the  germ  is  or  has  to 
start  with  in  virtue  of  its  organic  continuity  with  pre- 
ceding generations.  By  '  nurture '  is  meant  all  the 
environmental  and  functional  influences  that  affect 
development:  in  Man's  case,  home,  school,  town,  coun- 
try, cosmic  surroundings,  food  and  drink,  work  and 
play,  exercise  and  rest,  companions  and  teachers, 
examples  and  traditions.  It  rises  from  fundamental 
influences,  such  as  those  of  food  and  fresh  air,  to  the 
supreme  influences  of  the  social  heritage. 

§  2.   Nurture  and  Development. 

Our  first  proposition  is  that  the  fullness  of  develop- 
ment depends  in  part  on  the  adequacy  of  the  nurture. 
A  niggardly  nurture  may  mean  an  imperfect  unfolding 
of  the  hereditary  nature;  a  rich  nurture  may  mean  its 
fine  blossoming.  The  constituents  of  our  inheritance 
are  like  buds.  It  does  not  seem  as  if  we  can  in  any 
way  add  to  or  subtract  from  their  number,  but  to  some 
extent  nurture  determines  whether  a  bud  of  a  bad 
quality  will  remain  sleeping  or  unfold  its  loathsome- 
ness, whether  a  bud  of  good  quality  will  open  out  in  a 
half-hearted  way  or  with  vigour.  The  inheritance  is 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE     89 

the  seed-corn;  nurture  is  the  soil  and  the  sunshine,  the 
wind  and  the  rain  and  the  morning  dew.  Nurture 
cannot  change  bad  seed  into  good,  nor  conversely,  but 
it  may  determine  whether  the  crops  yield  thirty-fold  or 
a  hundred-fold.  No  amount  of  nurture  can  make  the 
Ethiopian  change  his  skin  or  the  leopard  his  spots,  but 
nurture  can  work  miracles  in  field  and  garden,  in 
school  and  college.  Nurture  cannot  make  a  silk  purse 
out  of  a  sow's  ear,  but  it  often  determines  whether  a 
man  becomes  a  good  citizen  or  a  waster.  One  of  the 
leading  experimenters,  Prof.  T.  H.  Morgan,  writes: 
"  It  is  a  commonplace  that  the  environment  is  essen- 
tial for  the  development  of  any  trait,  and  that  traits 
may  differ  according  to  the  environment  in  which  they 
develop." 

DISCUSSION. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  an  antithesis  should  be  made 
between  <  Nature  '  and  '  Nurture  ',  since  it  is  plain  that 
the  two  are  complementary,  not  opposed.  There  can 
be  no  development  at  all  without  a  minimum  of  nur- 
ture: no  amount  of  nurture  can  make  a  bad  inher- 
itance good. 

As  a  reaction  from  a  period  during  which  over- 
sanguine  expectations  were  entertained  as  to  the 
ameliorative  effects  of  improved  environment  and 
function,  there  has  been  a  modern  tendency  to  an 


90  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

undue  depreciation  of  the  potency  of  nurture.    This 
is  due  to  three  sets  of  facts. 

(a)  In  the  first  place  it  is  impossible  not  to  be 
impressed   by    the   extraordinary   tenacity   of    some 
hereditary  characters  which  persist  for  generations,  no 
matter  how  the  nurture  is  changed.    A  peculiar  variety 
of  Greater  Celandine  (Chelidonium  ma  jus),  with  cut- 
up    leaves,    appeared    suddenly    hi    an    apothecary's 
garden  at  Heidelberg  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
has  bred  true  ever  since  in  all  sorts  of  surroundings. 

(b)  In   the   second   place,   while   we   are   not   at 
present  discussing  the  transmissibility  of  individually 
acquired   modifications,   but   the   influence   of   pecu- 
liarities of  nurture  on  the  individual  development,  the 
general  scepticism  as  to  the  transmission  of  modifica- 
tions has  probably  tended  to  a  depreciation  of  the  im- 
portance of  nurture  in  general. 

(c)  In  the  third  place,  when  an  appeal  is  made  to 
general  facts  so  as  to  get  away  from  the  fallacy  of 
arguing  from  individual  instances  which  happen  to 
impress  us,  the  evidence  warns  us  against  attaching 
too  much  importance  to  nurture-effects.     The  statis- 
tical evidence  furnished  by  Prof.  Karl  Pearson  and 
his  investigators  at  the  Galton  Laboratory  leads  them 
to  conclude  that  the  results  of  changes  in  '  nurture ' 
are  of  relatively  small  importance  compared  with  the 
results  of  intrinsic  variations  in  hereditary  'nature* 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE     91 

(including  physique,  mentality,  and  habits)  of  the 
parents.  We  must  confess  that  it  seems  to  us  extraor- 
dinarily difficult  in  Man's  case  to  discriminate  what 
is  due  to  the  inheritance  (granting  in  addition  an 
average  share  of  the  appropriate  nurture  that  is  indis- 
pensable if  there  is  to  be  development  at  all)  from 
what  is  due  to  peculiarities  of  nurture  (granting  again 
an  average  normal  inheritance  to  work  upon).  We  are 
assured,  however,  that  "  the  degree  of  dependence  of 
the  child  on  the  characters  of  its  parentage  is  ten  times 
as  intense  as  its  degree  of  dependence  on  the  character 
of  its  home  or  uprearing  ".  "  It  is  five  to  ten  times 
as  profitable  for  a  child  to  be  born  of  parents  of  sound 
physique  and  of  brisk,  orderly  mentality  as  for  a  child 
to  be  born  and  nurtured  in  a  good  physical  environ- 
ment." 

Let  us  consider  the  problem  from  a  general  bio- 
logical point  of  view.  There  are  undoubtedly  many 
cases  in  which  the  developing  organism  is  remarkably 
indifferent  to  its  nurture,  provided  always  that  there 
be  a  modicum  of  air,  moisture,  food,  warmth,  and  the 
other  indispensables.  It  is  a  striking  fact  that  the 
ovum  of  a  rabbit  can  develop  for  two  days  outside  of 
the  body  altogether,  and  the  experimental  embryolo- 
gists  have  shown  us  that  many  developing  germs  can 
readjust  themselves  and  develop  normally  after  strange 
disarranging  tricks  have  been  played  with  them. 


92  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

There  are  some  delicate  creatures,  such  as  the  larvae 
of  sea-urchins,  which  are  difficult  to  rear  till  one  knows 
the  secret,  which  are  readily  injured  by  even  slight 
nurtural  changes;  on  the  other  hand,  many  other  de- 
veloping creatures  can  within  limits  adjust  themselves 
to,  and  develop  normally  in  quite  peculiar  conditions 
of  life. 

If  we  take  a  broad  view  of  development  and  think 
of  full-fledged  behaviour,  the  same  is  true.  If  the 
new-laid  eggs  of,  say,  the  Blackheaded  Gull  be  taken 
from  the  nest  and  kept  in  an  incubator  in  the  labora- 
tory until  they  hatch,  and  if  the  young  birds  be  reared 
in  confinement,  we  get,  as  every  one  knows,  normal, 
well-endowed  creatures,  which  will  migrate  months 
afterwards  when  their  kinsfolk  flying  overhead  pull 
the  trigger  of  an  inborn  predisposition.  The  whole 
nurture  of  these  young  birds  was  peculiar,  but  it  did 
not  seem  to  make  much  difference.  There  is  evidence, 
we  believe,  that  some  birds  which  have  not  known  free- 
dom are  somewhat  handicapped  when  liberated,  not 
knowing  their  way  about.  But  the  clear  fact  seems 
to  be  that  for  many  creatures  changes  of  nurture  need 
not  be  of  great  importance  as  long  as  the  essential 
conditions  of  development  are  not  interfered  with. 
The  full  inheritance  may  not  be  expressed,  but  a  large 
proportion  of  it  is  realised  as  usual.  What,  then,  is 
the  importance  of  nurture? 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE     93 

Admitting  all  this  and  more,  we  return  to  our  propo- 
sition that  the  fullness  of  the  development  depends  in 
part  on  the  adequacy  of  the  nurture.  It  is  a  subject 
for  inquiry  in  each  particular  case  whether  a  deficiency 
in  development  is  due  to  defective  i  nature '  or  to  de- 
fective '  nurture '.  In  any  environment,  Man  will 
develop  two  sets  of  teeth,  yet  the  development  of  the 
teeth  will  in  part  depend  on  the  nutrition.  Very  sug- 
gestive are  certain  experiments  made  by  Gudexnatch 
on  tadpoles  (Amer.  Journ.  Anat.,  XV,  1914,  pp.  431- 
478,  2  pis.).  Tadpoles  fed  on  minced  thyroid  showed 
the  usual  division  of  labour  and  complexity  of  parts, 
but  they  remained  small.  They  became  eerie  dwarfs, 
showing  differentiation  without  growth.  But  tadpoles 
fed  on  minced  thymus  and  spleen  grew  big  without 
growing  complex.  They  showed  growth  without  dif- 
ferentiation. They  remained  big  tadpoles — children 
that  could  not  grow  up. 

Another  diagrammatic  illustration  concerns  the  red 
Chinese  primrose  (Primula  sinensis  rubra),  so  fa- 
miliar in  greenhouses.  Reared  at  i5°-2O°  C.  it  has  red 
flowers;  reared  at  3o°-35°C.,  with  moisture  and 
shade,  the  same  plants  have  pure  white  flowers.  The 
development,  so  far  as  colour  goes,  depends  on  the 
nurture.  The  white  Chinese  primrose  (Primula 
sinensis  alba)  bears  only  white  flowers  whatever  be 
the  temperature  (see  T.  H.  Morgan  and  others:  The 


94  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

Mechanism  of  Mendelian  Heredity,  New  York,  1915, 
p.  38). 

A  character  known  to  be  a  part  of  the  inheritance 
may  remain  entirely  unexpressed  in  the  individual 
development  because  certain  environmental  conditions 
are  lacking,  yet  the  heritable  character  may  be  handed 
on  all  the  same.  Let  us  consider  the  parable  of  the 
Fruit-fly  (Drosophtta  ampelophila)  as  we  find  it  in 
Prof.  T.  H.  Morgan's  book  already  quoted.  There  is 
a  race  of  these  flies  with  a  peculiar  abnormality,  and 
in  ordinary  conditions  the  members  of  this  abnormal 
race  produce  others  like  themselves.  But  if  the  eggs 
of  these  flies  are  reared  in  a  very  dry  place  the  insects 
are  all  normal,  and  one  might  be  tempted  to  think  that 
the  vice  had  vanished.  But  if  the  offspring  of  these 
apparently  normal  flies  are  reared  in  a  moist  place,  the 
abnormality  is  again  displayed.  The  point  of  the 
parable  is  missed  if  it  be  thought  that  the  wetness 
produces  the  abnormality  afresh.  That  is  not  the 
state  of  affairs.  The  hereditary  factor  for  the  abnor- 
mality is  there  all  the  time,  but  it  finds  expression  in 
moist  environment  only. 

Another  illustration  from  the  Fruit-fly  may  be  use- 
ful. There  is  a  divergent  (or  mutant)  stock  that  pro- 
duces supernumerary  legs,  in  a  considerable  per- 
centage in  winter,  few  or  none  in  summer.  Miss 
Hoge  has  found  that  when  the  flies  are  kept 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE     95 

in  an  ice-chest  at  a  temperature  of  about  10°  C. 
there  is  a  high  percentage  of  individuals  with  extra 
legs. 

In  a  hot  climate  there  would  be  little  or  no  evidence 
that  the  peculiarity  in  question  was  part  of  the  inher- 
itance. This  shows  that  the  expression  of  the  in- 
heritance as  regards  a  particular  character  sometimes 
depends  on  nurture. 

While  some  developing  organisms  are  callously  in- 
different to  changes  in  the  environment,  there  are 
others  which  respond  sensitively,  sometimes  in  a 
startling  way,  to  external  changes,  even  when  they  do 
not  seem  to  be  very  drastic.  Thus  Prof.  Jacques  Loeb 
has  shown  (Biolog.  Bull.,  XXIX,  1915,  p.  50)  that 
it  is  very  easy  to  produce  a  percentage  of  minnow- 
embryos  (Fundulus)  with  defective  eyes,  by  the  sim- 
ple expedient  of  adding  a  minute  quantity  of  potassium 
cyanide  to  the  water,  or  by  exposing  the  newly  fer- 
tilised eggs  to  low  temperature.  That  is  to  say,  rela- 
tively slight  environmental  changes  may  set  a-going 
vital  processes  which  alter  the  constitution  of  the  de- 
veloping embryo  in  a  very  precise  way.  A  leap  is 
taken  in  the  direction  of  blindness. 

For  the  same  fish  (Fundulus),  it  has  been  shown 
by  Stockard  (Journ.  Exper.  Zool.,  Feb.,  1909) 
that  the  addition  of  a  very  minute  quantity  of  mag- 
nesium salt  to  the  water  induces  in  a  large  number 


96  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

of  embryos  the  development  of  a  single  Cyclopean  eye 
instead  of  the  normal  two  eyes. 

We  must  also  recall  the  experiments  of  Prof.  D.  T. 
MacDougal,  who  injected  solutions  of  sugar  and  salts 
of  calcium,  potassium,  and  zinc  into  the  developing 
ovaries  of  one  of  the  Evening  Primroses  with  the 
result  that  a  small  percentage  of  the  seeds  developed 
into  notably  atypical  plants,  which  bred  true  to  the 
third  generation.  The  chemical  substances  introduced 
were  not  of  a  very  out-of-the-way  sort;  they  were  not 
very  different  from  those  which  might  occur  in  the 
course  of  nature  in  the  sap  of  the  plant.  Among  the 
changes  induced  there  were  not  only  decreases  and 
increases  in  what  was  already  present;  there  were 
some  distinct  novelties  which  maintained  their  dis- 
tinctiveness  when  crossed  with  the  parental  strains. 
It  is  probable  that  the  injections  into  the  ovaries  acted 
as  variational  stimuli  on  the  germ-cells  (see  lecture 
on  "  The  Direct  Influence  of  Environment,"  in  Fifty 
Years  of  Darwinism,  1919). 

Facts  like  those  cited  should  be  borne  in  mind  in 
connection  with  Man  and  ordinary  placental  mammals 
where  the  unborn  offspring  lives  in  intimate  partner- 
ship (or  symbiosis)  with  its  mother.  Slight  changes 
produced  in  the  blood  of  the  mother  by  peculiarities 
of  nurture  may  affect  the  development  of  the  offspring. 
It  is  very  important  to  realise  the  difficulty  of  dis- 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE    97 

tinguishing  between  what  is  due  to  inherited  nature 
(and  average  normal  nurture)  and  what  is  due  to 
some  peculiarity  in  ante-natal  nurture. 

Here  we  may  consider  the  parable  of  the  Planarian 
worms  (Planaria),  very  simple  '  living  films',  often 
seen  gliding  about  by  means  of  microscopic  lashes 
(cilia)  on  the  pond- weeds.  When  they  are  allowed  no 
choice  of  food,  but  restricted  to  the  uncongenial  flesh 
of  fresh-water  mussels,  they  cease  to  thrive.  Their 
vital  processes,  Professor  Child  tells  us,  are  slowed 
down,  and  their  resistance-powers  to  deleterious  influ- 
ences are  lessened.  They  become  old,  and,  what  is 
more  remarkable,  if  the  diet  be  continued  for  several 
generations,  they  begin  to  be  born  old.  Now  one  does 
not  dream  of  arguing  from  worm  to  man,  but  there 
is  a  suggestion  here  of  the  danger  of  too  much  porridge 
at  the  one  extreme  and  too  much  partridge  at  the  other. 
In  any  case  we  submit  that  the  facts  warn  us  against 
being  in  a  hurry  to  depart  from  the  common-sense 
belief  that  for  the  individual,  at  least,  peculiarities  of 
nurture  may  count  for  much. 

§  3.   Individually  Acquired  Modifications  and 
Their  Transmissibility. 

On  some  parts  of  the  east  coast  of  Scotland  the  trees 
are  all  lopsided;  the  main  stem  bends  landwards  and 
almost  all  the  branches  stretch  their  arms  away  from 


98  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

the  sea.  This  is  the  result  of  the  strong  east  wind, 
and  it  is  a  simple  example  of  a  modification.  If  we 
look  at  the  white  Water  Buttercup  (Ranunculus 
aquatilis)  on  a  quiet  stretch  of  a  stream  we  see  that 
most  of  the  leaves  are  lying  on  the  surface  and  are 
simply  lobed;  but  on  another  stretch  where  there  is  a 
rapid  flow  the  leaves  are  all  submerged  and  cut  up  into 
green  threads.  This  is  another  example  of  a  modifica- 
tion, an  individually  acquired  character  due  to  a  pecu- 
liarity in  nurture,  and  it  is  historically  interesting  in 
being  one  of  the  examples  Lamarck  gave  of  the  direct 
action  of  the  environment. 

It  should  be  noticed,  however,  that  we  do  not  know 
to  what  degree  a  predisposition  to  assume  filiform 
leaves  is  now  part  of  the  hereditary  constitution  of  the 
water  buttercup.  A  more  cogent  case  would  be  one 
in  which  a  water  plant  not  previously  known  to  exhibit 
cut-up  leaves  developed  these  in  a  swift  stream. 

If  a  part  of  our  skin  is  persistently  subjected  to  local 
pressure,  it  often  gives  rise  to  a  protective  thickening 
of  the  epidermis,  a  callosity,  an  honourable  mark  of 
hard  work.  The  schoolboy  sometimes  has  one  on  his 
thumb  during  the  season  of  playing  marbles.  It  is  a 
positive  functional  modification,  a  direct  reaction  to  a 
peculiarity  in  function.  Yet  a  wart  may  arise  that 
simulates  a  callosity,  but  cannot  be  referred  to  any 
cause  operating  from  without, 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE     99 

A  Russian  naturalist,  Ogneff,  shut  up  some  goldfish 
in  total  darkness  for  three  years,  taking  care  to  give 
them  plenty  of  food  and  plenty  of  room.  At  the  end 
of  the  three  years  they  were  quite  blind;  the  rods  and 
cones  (the  percipient  elements)  of  the  retina  had  disap- 
peared. This  was  a  negative  modification,  directly  con- 
nected with  the  absence  of  light  and  the  cessation  of 
vision.  A  certain  amount  of  functioning  seems  to  be 
necessary  if  a  normally  active  structure  is  to  retain 
its  position,  its  architectural  stability. 

A  Japanese  investigator  subjected  white  rats  to  hard 
exercise  for  90  to  180  days,  which  is  comparable  to  a 
period  of  7  to  14  years  in  man,  for  the  length  of  life 
in  the  white  rat  is  about  three  years.  What  was  the 
result?  There  was  an  increase  in  the  weight  of  the 
heart,  kidneys,  and  liver,  on  an  average  to  about  twenty 
per  cent.  This  is  an  illustration  of  a  modifying  influ- 
ence affecting  several  parts  of  the  body  in  a  similar 
way. 

It  has  been  shown  (by  Semper  and  de  Varigny) 
that  the  young  of  the  fresh-water  snails  (Lymnceus) 
will  develop  into  dwarfs  in  an  aquarium  where  aeration 
is  abundant,  and  food  likewise,  where  indeed  every- 
thing is  satisfactory  except  that  the  surface  does  not 
give  the  animals  sufficient  room  for  exercise.  This  is 
surely  a  parable  for  our  instruction. 

The  French  have  a  wise  proverb,  "  By  force  of 


ioo  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

striking  one  becomes  a  blacksmith  "  (C'est  a  force 
de  forger  qu'on  dement  forger  on)]  and  this  is 
equally  true  of  the  powerful  wrist  of  the  violinist. 
The  results  of  physical  exercises  show  that  the  size 
and  strength  of  a  muscle  may  be  greatly  increased  by 
persistent  exercise.  It  seems  that  the  muscle-fibres 
grow  thicker  and  stronger;  we  believe  we  are  right  in 
saying  that  they  do  not  become  more  numerous. 

To  a  certain  extent  the  colour  of  some  birds,  e.g. 
canaries,  can  be  altered  by  particular  kinds  of  food. 
In  gulls  and  poultry  the  character  of  the  food-canal 
may  change  considerably  in  the  individual  bird  accord- 
ing to  the  nature  of  the  food.  The  fattening  of  geese 
is  a  somewhat  passive  nutritional  modification.  Mr. 
Beebe's  exceedingly  interesting  experiments  have 
shown  that  some  birds,  such  as  the  bobolink,  may  be 
dieted  so  that  they  keep  their  breeding  plumage  all 
the  year  and  will  sing  their  spring  song  in  midwinter. 

Extreme  tanning  or  browning  of  the  skin  as  the 
result  of  many  years  of  exposure  to  a  tropical  sun  is 
a  modification  that  may  persist  for  many  years  after 
the  traveller  has  returned  to  the  temperate  home  coun- 
try. It  is  hardly  correct  to  include  the  blanching  of 
the  banked-up  celery  as  a  modification,  for  it  does  not 
last  after  the  peculiar  conditions  of  darkness  are  re- 
moved. Some  caterpillars  subjected  to  cold  develop 
into  dark-coloured  butterflies;  others  are  able  to 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE   101 

adjust  their  colouration  or  that  of  their  pupae  to  the 
brown,  green,  or  gold  colour  of  the  box  in  which  they 
are  kept. 

Definition. — Such,  then,  are  the  changes  which  are 
called  "  bodily  modifications "  or  "  individually  ac- 
quired characters  ".  It  is  advisable  to  drop  the  tech- 
nical term  "  acquired  characters "  altogether,  for  it 
always  gives  rise  to  misunderstanding.  It  is  not  open 
to  the  argumentative  to  r3-defme  "  acquired  charac- 
ters "  or  "  somatic  modifications  "  to  suit  their  con- 
venience or  convictions.  The  term  has  been  his- 
torically defined  in  the  course  of  prolonged  discussion. 

Modifications  may  be  defined  as  structural  changes 
in  the  body  of  the  organism,  directly  induced  in  the 
individual  lifetime  by  peculiarities  in  function,  nutri- 
tion, or  environment,  which  transcend  the  limits  of 
organic  elasticity  and  thus  persist  after  the  inducing 
conditions  have  ceased  to  operate.  More  briefly,  modi- 
fications are  persistent,  individually  acquired,  direct 
results  of  peculiarities  of  nurture.  Modifications, 
being  wrought  upon  the  creature  from  without,  are  to 
be  contrasted  with  variations  or  mutations  which  arise 
from  within;  they  are  impressions  in  contrast  to  ex- 
pressions; they  are  exogenous  or  extrinsic.  In  a  word, 
they  are  dints,  not  outcomes. 

It  may  be  convenient,  though  too  much  should  not 
be  made  of  it,  to  distinguish  among  modifications 


102  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

(a)  those   due  to   peculiarities  of   use   and   disuse, 

(b)  those  due  to  peculiarities  of  food,  and  (c)  those 
due  to  peculiarities  in  surroundings.    Thus  there  are 
(a)  functional,  (b)  nutritional,  and  (c)  environmental 
modifications.    It  is  usual  to  include  the  food  as  one 
of  the  environmental  influences,  but  to  the  ordinary 
layman  this  often  seems  quaint. 

Frequent  Misunderstandings. — As  every  thoughtful 
inquirer  has  to  make  up  his  mind  in  regard  to  the 
importance  of  modifications  or  '  nurture-effects '  for 
the  individual  and  for  the  race,  a  few  explanations 
may  be  of  use  to  obviate  misunderstandings  which  are 
of  tedious  recurrence. 

(a)  A  temporary  change  which  does  not  persist 
after  the  inducing  conditions  have  ceased  to  operate 
may  be  called  an  '  adjustment '  or  '  accommodation  ', 
and  usefully  distinguished  from  a  modification,  which 
lasts.     It  is  not  pretended,  however,  that  any  hard 
and  fast  line  can  be  drawn. 

(b)  A  modification  is  a  'nurture-effect',  but  that 
is    not   precise    enough,    since    normal    development 
always  means  an  interaction  between  the  hereditary 
nature  and  the  appropriate  nurture.    A  modification  is 
a  structural  change  directly  due  to  a  peculiarity  or 
change  in  nurture. 

(c)  In  continuation  of  what  has  just  been  said,  it 
should  be  noted  that  the  list  of  modifications  in  the 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  103 

strict  sense  should  include  only  the  direct  new  results 
of  peculiarities  of  nurture.  A  change  in  nurture  often 
serves  as  the  liberating  stimulus  of  a  character  or 
quality  which  remains  unexpressed  in  the  ordinary 
environment.  For  many  organisms  have,  as  we  have 
seen,  alternative  possibilities  in  their  constitution,  the 
expression  of  the  one  or  the  other  depending  on  the 
available  nurture.  Thus  the  red  Chinese  primrose  has 
red  or  white  flowers  according  to  the  temperature; 
we  have  not  here  to  do  with  modification,  but  with 
alternatives  of  hereditary  expression.  A  true  modifi- 
cation is  something  more  or  less  novel,  a  directly 
impressed  dint.  Yet  this  word  'dint'  must  not  be 
taken  in  any  wooden  way,  for  the  organism  is  not 
like  passive  clay  in  the  potter's  hands.  Even  the 
environmentally  produced  modifications  are  the  result 
of  reactions  on  the  organism's  part.  To  tell  the  truth, 
none  of  our  words  and  frameworks  ever  fit  the  living 
creature  perfectly,  for  it  is  quite  legitimate,  though 
we  doubt  if  it  is  useful,  for  the  critic  of  the  contrast 
between  modifications  and  variations  (what  is  im- 
pressed and  what  is  expressed)  to  say  that  no  struc- 
tural response  can  be  got  from  the  organism  save  what 
it  was  by  hereditary  nature  capable  of  giving. 

(d)  It  tends  to  clearness  if  a  distinction  is  drawn 
between  modifications  and  their  secondary  conse- 
quences. The  body  is  a  unity;  part  is  bound  to  part; 


104  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

if  one  member  suffer,  other  members  may  suffer  with 
it.  But  it  is  useful  to  distinguish  the  original  modi- 
fication from  correlated  changes  that  may  follow  in  its 
train. 

The  Question  of  Transmission. — It  is  certain  that 
modifications  may  mean  much  for  the  individual. 
They  may  even  save  its  life.  But  can  they  be  handed 
on?  The  question  is  whether  a  modification  can  affect 
the  germ-cells  of  the  organism  in  such  a  definite  way 
that  the  offspring,  not  subjected  to  the  nurtural  pecu- 
liarity that  modified  the  parent,  will  through  inher- 
itance exhibit  the  modification  that  the  parent  acquired, 
or  even  an  approximation  towards  it.  There  are  not 
many  questions  more  important  than  this.  Herbert 
Spencer  wrote:  "A  right  answer  to  the  question 
whether  acquired  characters  are  or  are  not  inherited 
underlies  right  beliefs,  not  only  in  Biology  and  Psy- 
chology, but  also  in  Education,  Ethics,  and  Politics." 
With  unwonted  rashness  he  also  said :  "  Either  there 
has  been  inheritance  of  acquired  characters,  or  there 
has  been  no  evolution." 

Now  it  is  certain  that  the  transmission  of  indi- 
vidually acquired  modifications  to  any  readily  ob- 
servable degree  is  not  a  common  occurrence.  It  is 
possible  that  it  occurs  rarely;  it  is  possible  that  it 
occurs  in  a  degree  so  minute  that  the  entailment  is 
not  readily  observed.  The  subject  has  been  much  dis- 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  105 

cussed  for  nearly  half  a  century,  and  a  few  very  care- 
ful experiments  have  been  made,  yet  it  cannot  be  said 
that  the  evidence  adduced  in  support  of  the  affirmative 
position  is  convincing.  Many,  if  not  most,  biologists 
remain  unconvinced,  not  through  any  unwillingness  to 
recognise  the  possibility,  as  Darwin  did,  but  because 
the  evidence  is  unsatisfactory.  There  is  no  reason  to 
close  the  question  dogmatically  with  an  absolutely 
negative  answer,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  us  that  the 
evidence  in  support  of  the  affirmative  or  Lamarckian 
position — that  modifications  may  be  transmitted  in 
some  representative  degree — is  at  present  convincing. 

Indirect  Arguments  in  Favour  of  an  Acceptance  of 
the  Lamarckian  View. — In  the  absence,  so  far  as  we 
know,  of  clear-cut  evidence  showing  the  transmissi- 
bility  of  individually  acquired  modifications  let  us  con- 
sider indirect  arguments. 

(i)  How  can  there  be  progressive  evolution  at  all, 
it  is  asked,  if  acquired  characters  or  structural  modi- 
fications due  to  peculiarities  of  nurture  are  not  accu- 
mulated by  transmission?  The  answer  is  that  pro- 
gressive evolution  probably  depends  on  a  sifting  and 
singling  of  the  continuous  crop  of  germinal  variations 
or  mutations.  About  1818  the  record  speed  of  the 
trotting  horse  was  3  minutes  to  the  mile,  in  1814  it 
was  2  min.  34  sees.,  in  1848  2  min.  30  sees.,  in  1868 
2  min.  20  sees.,  in  1879  2  min.  16  sees.,  in  1888  2  min. 


106  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 


sees.,  and  (when  our  information  stops)  2  min. 
10  sees.  The  question  is  whether  the  progressive  gain 
in  speed  was  in  any  way  due  to  exercising,  or  wholly 
due  to  breeding  from  the  constitutionally  swiftest 
variants. 

(2)  It  is  easy  to  interpret  a  giraffe's  long  neck  as 
the  cumulative  hereditary  result  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  years'  stretching  at  branches,  and  a  cave- 
animal's  blindness  as  due  to  thousands  of  years  of 
darkness  and  disuse.  Herbert  Spencer  interpreted  his 
small  hands  as  the  result  of  the  minutely  manipulative 
work  in  which  his  father  and  grandfather  were  en- 
gaged. But  interpretation  is  not  proof.  (3)  A  com- 
mon fallacy  is  to  start  with  a  peculiarity  which  is  not 
proved  to  be  a  modification.  The  argument  runs  as 
follows:  —  Short-sightedness  is  due  to  straining  young 
eyes  over  small  print;  short-sightedness  is  trans- 
mitted; therefore  modifications  are  transmitted.  But 
it  has  not  been  proved  that  short-sightedness  is  a  modi- 
fication. It  occurs  in  people  who  do  not  read  or  strain 
their  eyes;  itpccurs  in  horses;  it  is  probably  due  to  a 
germinal  variation.  It  seems  that  a  change  impressed 
on  a  unicellular  organism  may  be  handed  on,  but  the 
distinction  between  '  body  '  and  '  germ-cells  '  has  not 
been  established  at  this  low  level. 

(4)  Reappearance  in  successive  generations  does 
not  prove  transmission,  unless  the  possibility  of  the 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  107 

modification  being  hammered  on  afresh  be  excluded. 
(5)  What  is  exhibited  at  birth  in  a  mammalian  off- 
spring or  at  separation  in  a  flowering  plant's  seed  is 
not  necessarily  part  of  the  inheritance,  it  may  have 
been  impressed  on  the  offspring  by  the  mother,  through 
the  medium  of  the  blood  or  the  sap.  The  secondary 
or  indirect  results  of  a  maternal  modification  may  thus 
affect  the  unborn  mammal  or  the  unliberated  seed, 
since  both  live  in  close  union  with  the  parent.  (6) 
Poisoning  of  the  whole  system  of  the  parent  may  cause 
deterioration  of  the  germ-cells,  and  yet  not  result  in 
the  transmission  of  any  particular  modification.  (7) 
Sheep  transported  to  a  colder  country  may  show  after 
some  months  a  change  in  the  character  and  length  of 
the  wool;  their  progeny  may  have  even  thicker  and 
longer  fleece.  Is  this  not  proof  enough  of  the  trans- 
mission of  a  modification?  The  answer  must  be 
"  Certainly  not  ".  For  the  second  generation  were  sub- 
jected to  the  peculiar  nurture  from  birth,  their  parents 
only  from  the  date  of  transportation.  If  there  were 
measurable  increase  in  the  third  generation  as  com- 
pared with  the  second,  and  if  no  selection  was  in 
process,  there  would  be  evidence  worth  consid- 
ering. But  we  do  not  know  of  its  being  forth- 
coming. 

Human   occupations   often   produce   modifications. 
Are  these  not  handed  on  at  all?    There  is  very  little 


108  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

hint  of  any  such  thing.  Overwork  on  a  mother's  part 
may  prejudice  her  child;  this  is  admitted  by  all.  But 
an  arrest  of  development  or  a  general  debility  induced 
by  defective  nutrition  is  very  different  from  the  trans- 
mission of  a  particular  individually  acquired  modifica- 
tion. In  connection  with  occupations  it  must  be  kept 
in  view  that  the  son  often  follows  his  father,  and  may 
soon  have  the  occupational  modification  impressed 
upon  him.  Moreover,  particular  constitutional  types 
may  gravitate  towards  particular  occupations,  and  of 
the  inheritance  of  particular  kinds  of  constitution 
there  is  no  manner  of  doubt. 

Habitual  drunkenness  on  the  part  of  a  parent  or  of 
the  parents  may  produce  modifications,  and  may  be 
followed  by  dire  results  in  the  offspring.  Is  this  not 
evidence  enough  of  the  transmission  of  modifications? 
Certainly  not  to  those  who  wish  to  think  clearly, 
(i)  There  is  some  evidence  that  thorough  poisoning 
of  the  body  may  cause  deterioration  of  the  germ-cells 
of  either  parent;  (2)  the  intemperate  habits  of  the 
parent  may  be  the  expression  of  an  inherited  lack  of 
control,  and  it  is  this  lack  that  is  continued  to  the 
offspring,  where  it  may  find  the  same  or  some  other 
expression;  (3)  drunkenness  on  the  mother's  part  may 
mean  serious  enfeebling  of  the  general  vigour  of  the 
child  during  the  period  of  ante-natal  partnership; 
(4)  some  children  get  alcohol  as  part  of  their  food 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  109 

from  the  days  of  suckling  onwards.  The  question  is 
not  easy.  A  belief  in  the  transmission  of  modifications 
was  perhaps  expressed  in  the  old  Hebraic  proverb: 
"  The  fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes,  and  the  chil- 
dren's teeth  are  set  on  edge  " — a  proverb  which  the 
prophet  Ezekiel  with  great  solemnity  said  was  not  to 
be  used  any  more  in  Israel  (Ezek.  xviii,  2).  Now,  if 
"  setting  on  edge  "  was  a  structural  modification,  and 
if  the  children's  teeth  were  "  set  on  edge  "  because  of 
what  had  happened  to  their  fathers  in  direct  conse- 
quence of  eating  sour  grapes,  there  would  have  been  a 
presumption  in  favour  of  a  belief  in  the  transmission 
of  this  acquired  character.  It  would  still  be  necessary, 
however,  to  be  very  careful  in  our  conclusion, — to 
inquire,  for  instance,  whether  the  children  had  not 
been  in  the  vineyard  too.  If,  as  Romanes  said,  the 
children  were  born  with  wry  necks,  we  should 
perhaps  have  to  deal  with  an  indirect  result  of 
the  parental  indiscretion,  and  not  with  any  direct 
representation  in  the  inheritance  of  that  particu- 
lar modification  which  was  produced  in  the 
parents  as  the  direct  result  of  eating  sour 
grapes. 

To  come  down  to  very  concrete  cases,  peculiarities 
like  rickets,  enlarged  heart,  eye-strain,  are  modifica- 
tions, dints,  or  imprints  due  to  peculiarities  of  environ- 
ment, nutrition,  use  and  disuse,  and  the  trend  of  the 


no  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

evidence  is  certainly  towards  the  conclusion  that  they 
will  not  be  transmitted. 

Parable  of  the  Peach  Trees.— The  French  biologist 
Bordage  made  careful  observations  on  south  European 
peach  trees  which  had  been  transported  to  Reunion  in 
the  West  Indies.  As  has  been  noticed  in  similar  cases, 
they  became  evergreen, — it  took  some  of  them  twenty 
years.  The  individual  constitution  was  altered;  they 
stopped  shedding  their  leaves  in  autumn.  Now,  when 
seeds  of  these  false-evergreens,  modification-ever- 
greens, were  sown  in  certain  mountainous  districts 
with  a  considerable  amount  of  frost,  they  grew  up  into 
evergreen  peach  trees.  This  looks  at  first  sight  like 
a  demonstration  of  the  transmission  of  an  acquired 
character.  But  one  has  to  remember  that  a  seed 
is  a  complex  thing  with  a  considerable  history  be- 
hind it;  it  is  not  a  germ-cell;  it  is  a  young  plant. 
The  body  of  the  seed  had  probably  been  profoundly  in- 
fluenced by  the  body  of  the  parent  plant  before  separa- 
tion took  place.  So  is  it  in  mammals  and  in  Man.  It 
is  necessary  to  distinguish  between  what  is  acquired  or 
imprinted  before  birth  and  what  is  in  the  strict  sense 
part  of  the  inheritance. 

There  are  many  structural  adaptations  that  almost 
inevitably  suggest  to  the  impartial  inquirer  that  they 
have  arisen  by  the  cumulative  inheritance  of  the 
results  of  use  and  disuse  or  of  peculiar  environmental 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  in 

influence.  The  camel  and  the  wart-hog  have  great 
callous  pads  which  protect  the  skin  on  areas  subjected 
to  great  pressure.  We  know  that  callosities  sometimes 
develop  on  individual  animals,  as  on  our  own  hands, 
as  the  direct  result  of  pressure.  What  more  natural 
than  the  interpretation  of  the  pads  of  camel  and  wart- 
hog  as  the  result  of  the  hereditary  accumulation  of 
modifications?  What  more  natural  than  to  interpret 
in  a  similar  way  the  blindness  of  cave  animals  or  the 
shape  of  a  snake?  To  this  it  may  be  answered  that 
"  what  seems  natural "  is  not  necessarily  valid  scien- 
tifically. Moreover,  many  hard  non-living  parts  of 
animals,  such  as  the  chitinous  tools  of  insects,  are  just 
as  suggestive  of  direct  adaptations  as  the  pads  of 
camels,  but  the  interpretation  is  impossible,  since  they 
are  not  living  or  individually  plastic. 

The  entailment  of  individually  acquired  modifica- 
tions seems  such  a  ready  method  of  securing  progress 
in  evolution,  that  if  it  does  not  occur  one  would  like 
to  know  why.  The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  If 
individually  acquired  advantageous  gains  could  be 
entailed,  the  same  would  also  apply  to  individual 
losses.  Were  transmission  of  modification  on  the 
credit  side  of  the  account,  would  there  not  be  the 
same  on  the  debit  side?  Had  there  been  any  way  of 
entailing  modification  gains,  but  not  modification 
losses,  it  would  surely  have  been  found  out  long  ago. 


ii2  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

There  seems  to  be  no  way.  Why  are  modifications  not 
transmitted?  Actually,  because  of  the  absence  of  any 
arrangement,  so  far  as  we  know,  for  securing  that 
modifications  can  affect  the  germ-cells  in  a  manner  so 
specific  that  the  offspring  exhibit  the  same  modifica- 
tion, or  some  approximation  towards  it.  It  has  been 
suggested  by  Cunningham,  Bergson,  Dendy,  and  Mac- 
Bride  that  a  modification  may  liberate  a  specific 
hormone  which  affects  the  germ-cells  representatively; 
and  the  same  idea  was  in  Darwin's  mind  in  his  theory 
of  gemmules  liberated  from  the  various  parts  of  the 
body  and  travelling  to  the  germ-cells.  But  it  must  be 
firmly  pointed  out  that  these  are  unverified  speculative 
interpretations  of  the  possible  accomplishment  of 
what  we  do  not  know  to  be  a  fact.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  racial  welfare,  modifications  are  not  en- 
tailed because  an  advantageous  constitution  is 
thus  saved  from  being  damaged  by  dints  and  buffet- 
ings  incident  on  the  chequered  life  of  the  individual 
body. 

If  it  be  said  that  it  is  incredible  that  individual  expe- 
rience counts  for  nought  in  evolution,  the  answer  must 
be  that  this  is  not  asserted.  The  individual  experience 
affords  the  opportunity  for  playing  the  cards  which 
germinal  variability  puts  in  the  organism's  hands,  the 
opportunity  for  testing  the  survival  value  of  new  de- 
partures whose  origin  is  from  within. 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  113 

§  4.   Nurture  of  the  Higher  Faculties. 

As  we  have  seen,  our  natural  inheritance  includes 
on  the  mental  and  moral  side  (i)  a  common  stock  of 
intellectual  and  emotional  capacities  (shared  in  some 
measure  by  all  mankind,  but  varying  greatly  in  inten- 
sity or  potential),  (2)  a  common  stock  of  fundamental 
instinctive  predispositions  and  springs  of  conduct,  and 
(3)  a  number  of  individual  traits  or  idiosyncrasies. 

Now,  while  the  respiratory  movements  of  the  new- 
born child  are  set  a-going  almost  automatically  by  a 
change  in  the  physico-chemical  character  of  the  blood, 
and  are  continued  almost  automatically  throughout 
life,  so  finely  adjusted  according  to  need  that  they  are 
rarely  at  fault  in  healthy  people,  it  is  surely  very  dif- 
ferent with  the  higher  mental  and  moral  capacities. 
They  are  not  like  so  many  musical  boxes  in  our  brain 
that  may  be  set  a-going  with  a  touch  and  then  left 
alone.  They  are  more  like  seeds  which  require  to  be 
watered  and  sunned.  They  require,  as  every  one 
knows,  careful  and  subtle  nurture  if  they  are  to  de- 
velop aright.  To  an  extent  to  which  the  development 
of  the  body  offers  no  analogy,  the  development  of  the 
mind  is  a  social  product.  As  we  look  round  among 
our  fellows,  we  see  many  whose  widely  recognised 
ability  was  marked  in  childhood;  there  is  no  getting 
away  from  the  fact  that  a  fine  brain  was  part  of  their 


ii4  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

natural  inheritance.  But  it  is  not  less  certain  that 
men  of  no  special  excellence  of  cerebral  endowment 
may  by  fullness  of  nurture  attain  to  a  high  degree  of 
mental  efficiency,  and  that  there  are  others  whose  fine 
sword  is  allowed  to  rust  in  its  scabbard.  The  poet, 
the  painter,  the  musician,  the  mathematician  of  high 
excellence  is  born  not  made,  but  there  is  in  the  ma- 
jority of  civilised  men  a  small  bud  at  least  correspond- 
ing to  the  fine  flower  of  genius,  and  a  certain  poetical, 
artistic,  musical,  and  mathematical  capacity  is  within 
reach  of  most.  It  may  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that 
we  are  as  much  made  as  born;  it  is  certain  that  more 
can  be  made  of  us  than  we  usually  believe. 

Future  generations  will  probably  wonder  at  our 
treatment  of,  let  us  say,  the  rovers.  They  can  no 
more  help  being  rovers  than  one  can  help  having  red 
hair.  What  has  to  be  done  is  to  make  the  best  of 
them — in  boy  scouts  to  begin  with,  perhaps,  as  ex- 
plorers, King's  messengers,  missionaries,  and  the  like 
later  on.  To  try  to  make  them  elders  of  the  Church 
is  to  court  disaster. 

From  89  family  histories  not  selected  Dr.  Daven- 
port has  given  substantial  backing  of  fact  to  his  inter- 
esting thesis  that  there  are  in  our  natural  inheritance" 
two  unit  factors — one  which  he  calls  excitability,  its 
absence  spelling  placidity,  the  other  which  he  calls 
cheerfulness,  its  absence  spelling  depression.  With 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  115 

rare  exceptions  the  offspring  of  two  excitable  parents 
are  excitable;  out  of  133  such  offspring,  only  6  grew 
up  to  be  well-balanced,  quiet,  placid,  sensible 
people.  The  excitable  types  correspond  to  the  old 
'  nervous '  types:  active,  energetic,  irritable,  am- 
bitious, given  to  planning,  optimistic,  talkative, 
and  jolly.  An  extreme  of  this  is  the  old  '  choleric ' 
type:  overactive,  fussy,  shifting  from  one  thing 
to  another,  usually  hilarious,  passionate,)  even  vio- 
lent. 

Similarly  the  man  with  the  cheerful  factor  cor- 
responds to  the  old  '  phlegmatic  ':  he  is  quiet,  serious, 
conservative,  and  a  little  pessimistic.  If  this  goes  too 
far  it  becomes  the  old  '  melancholic  ' — unresponsive, 
taking  things  lying  down,  weak,  given  to  worry,  and 
even  to  tears.  His  life  is  rather  a  burden  to  him,  and 
certainly  to  other  people.  It  often  looks  as  if  a 
dichotomy  ran  through  our  whole  population — between 
the  quickly  reacting,  with  low  arterial  tension,  and 
the  slowly  reacting,  with  high  arterial  tension,  which 
again  may  have  to  do  with  the  secretion  of  adrenalin 
by  the  supra-renal  bodies.  We  know  the  dichotomy 
between  the  enthusiast  and  the  reflective,  the  romantic 
and  the  classic,  the  radical  and  the  conservative,  the 
feebly  inhibited  and  the  strongly  inhibited,  the  Bo- 
hemian and  the  conventional,  the  tender-minded  and 
the  tough-minded,  the  idealist  and  the  matter-of-fact 


n6  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

man,  the  free-willist  and  the  fatalist.  As  Dr.  Daven- 
port says,  the  two  contrasted  types  are  to  be  seen  in 
all  sorts  of  garbs: — "In  business,  the  bold,  energetic, 
dashing  promoter  and  the  solid,  conservative,  thrifty 
merchant;  in  law,  the  emotional  jury  lawyer  and  the 
learned  judge;  in  medicine,  the  skilful  operator  in  dif- 
ficult cases  and  the  skilled  diagnostician  and  con- 
sultant; in  divinity,  the  magnetic  evangelist  and  the 
profound  theologian  or  exegetist;  in  war,  a  dashing 
Sheridan  and  a  solid,  quiet  Grant." 

Dr.  Davenport  thinks  it  probable  that  there  are  in 
the  germ  quite  definite  determinants  whose  presence 
or  absence  settles  our  dominant  temperament  whether 
excitable  or  placid,  cheerful  or  depressed.  The  amend- 
ment that  we  propose  is  that,  human  life  being  a  very 
complex  thing,  the  probability  is  that  the  settled  tem- 
peraments of  most  of  us,  though  based  on  definite 
hereditary  determinants,  are  complicated  resultants  of 
many  factors,  bodily  as  well  as  mental,  social  as  well 
as  individual,  environmental  and  occupational  as  well 
as  constitutional — made  as  well  as  born,  for  we  build 
them  up  in  the  way  we  relate  ourselves  to  nurture  and 
opportunities,  just  as  we  build  up  our  characters.  We 
are  architects  of  our  own  fortunes.  Our  mind  is  an 
instrument  which  we  and  social  influences  construct 
together. 

Mental  Disturbances.    This  is  the  appropriate  place 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  117 

for  a  reference  to  what  some  authorities  have  told  us 
concerning  nervous  or  mental  disturbances.  After  a 
long  experience  of  the  insane,  Sir  Thomas  Clouston 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  what  was  continued  in  the 
inheritance  of  the  mentally  affected  was  usually  a  gen- 
eral proclivity  or  weakness,  e.g.  in  the  power  of  con- 
trol, and  not  any  particular  disease,  such  as  some  form 
of  insanity. 

It  is  certain  that  what  was  in  the  parent  a  weakness 
or  tiredness  of  the  brain  (general  neurasthenia)  may 
take  some  other  form  in  the  offspring,  possibly  under 
provocation  a  more  virulent  form,  and  that  it  may  be 
shifted  from  one  period  of  life  to  another.  Dr.  F.  W. 
Mott  has  given  interesting  cases  of  what  he  calls  "  the 
law  of  anticipation  " — the  tendency  that  the  nervous 
disturbance  sometimes  shows  to  be  shunted  earlier  and 
earlier  in  its  expression. 

As  every  one  knows  there  is  a  rapidly  growing  con- 
viction that  those  who  have  a  marked  family  predis- 
position to  serious  mental  instability  should  not  have 
children.  The  individual  and  racial  risks  are  too  great. 
What  constitutes  "  a  marked  family  predisposition  to 
serious  mental  instability "  must  be  decided  by  the 
wise  family  physician  (or  by  the  board  of  experts  who 
will  perhaps  grant  marriage  certificates  in  the  future). 
But  this  much  is  clear,  that  a  common-sense  distinc- 
tion should  be  drawn  between  a  weak-mindedness  and 


n8  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

uncontrolledness  which  is  manifested  from  birth  on- 
wards and  is  plainly  bred  in  the  bone,  and  a  nervous 
breakdown  which  occurred  in  a  catastrophe,  such  as 
an  earthquake,  or  under  a  terrible  strain,  such  as  that 
of  the  trenches.  The  former  will  be  very  heritable,  the 
latter  probably  not. 

But  what  we  have  learned  in  regard  to  the  impor- 
tance of  nurture  leads  us  further,  and  we  venture  to 
quote  from  a  recent  report  by  a  distinguished  authority 
in  this  dreadful  field.  Dr.  Easterbrook  writes:  "It 
cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasised  that  no  one  becomes 
insane  without  previously  being  or  becoming  '  nerv- 
ous '.  ...  It  does  not  follow  that  every  nervous 
individual  will  become  insane.  .  .  .  Only  a  small 
proportion  do  so.  ...  Those  who  have  an  unstable 
nervous  system  should  recognise  it  as  such,  their  weak 
point  of  defence  and  resistance,  and  regulate  their 
lives  accordingly." 

A  nervous  disposition  may  be  inherited  and  then 
transmitted,  but  it  may  also  be  acquired  and  then  not 
transmitted.  Faulty  habits  of  mind  and  body  which 
lead  to  the  nervous  disposition — which  is  the  danger- 
zone  of  insanity — are  often  remediable,  especially  in 
early  years.  Just  as  sleeplessness  may  warn  a  man 
that  he  is  overworking  or*  overpoisoning  himself,  or 
that  some  organ  of  the  body  is  insidiously  going  out 
of  gear,  so  the  acquired  nervousness  may  be  a  useful 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  119 

warning  of  the  possibility  of  worse.  Insanity  is  often 
summed  up  as  due  to  unstable  inheritance  shaken  by 
stress,  but  it  would  be  truer,  Dr.  Easterbrook  says,  to 
refer  insanity  to  nervous  disposition  and  stress.  And 
the  point  for  us  in  this  simple  discourse  is  just  this, 
that  while  the  nervous  disposition  is  sometimes  inborn 
or  inherited,  it  is  sometimes  acquired  or  induced.  In 
the  former  case,  it  cannot  be  got  rid  of,  but  it  can 
be  quieted  or  provoked  according  to  the  wisdom  or 
folly  of  nurture.  In  the  latter  case,  it  can  be  un-made 
if  taken  in  time,  or  redirected  into  safety  by  appro- 
priate discipline.  Best  of  all,  it  may  be  avoided  alto- 
gether. 

Criminals. — It  would  be  absurd  to  try  to  discuss  in 
a  few  lines  a  vast  subject  like  criminology — a  large 
section  of  social  pathology — but  we  venture  to  invite 
attention  to  the  thesis  to  which  so  many  careful  investi- 
gations point,  that  there  are  more  crimes  than  crim- 
inals. That  is  to  say,  crime  is  more  frequently  the  result 
of  external  influences — especially  economic  and  po- 
litical conditions — than  the  expression  of  a  definitely 
criminal  nature.  In  support  of  this  thesis  we  may 
refer,  for  instance,  to  the  learned  work  of  Dr.  W.  A. 
Bonger,  Criminality  and  Economic  Conditions,  the 
conclusion  of  which  is  that  the  preponderant,  if  not 
the  decisive,  cause  of  criminality  is  to  be  found  in 
economic  conditions.  If  this  conclusion  be  true,  it 


120  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

follows  that  there  is  need  for  further  changes — much 
has  been  done — in  our  treatment  of  criminals.  There 
is  much  reason  to  doubt  whether  our  present  system 
of  punishing  certain  kinds  of  crime,  such  as  theft  and 
public  drunkenness,  has  any  beneficial  effect  on  either 
prisoner  or  society.  The  punishment  tends  to  dis- 
tract attention  from  the  social  causes  of  the  crime  and 
tends  to  make  the  criminal.  That,  at  any  rate,  is  one 
side  of  the  case,  in  which  there  is  much  truth. 

On  the  other  side  there  is  the  position  of  criminolo- 
gists  like  Lombroso  and  Ferri,  who  have  emphasised 
the  reality  of  the  criminal  type.  It  is  the  contrast 
between  l  nature  '  and  '  nurture  '  again,  and  the  truth 
lies  between  the  two  extreme  positions — that  which 
lays  all  the  blame  on  environment  and  that  which  lays 
all  the  blame  on  the  individual.  Criticism  has  seri- 
ously damaged  the  validity  of  Lombroso's  thoroughly 
criminal  type  with  all  sorts  of  stigmata,  but  his  con- 
ception was  an  exaggeration  of  one  side  of  the  truth. 
Human  beings  are  sometimes  born  in  a  very  imper- 
fectly finished  state  of  development — for  infants,  that 
is;  others  are  singularly  deficient  in  generous  impulse, 
imagination,  power  of  attention,  and  power  of  control 
— defects  which  spell  weak  will  when  added  up;  it 
looks  as  if  others  were  born  with  a  double  dose  of 
sex.  It  is  quite  easy  to  understand  how  a  constitu- 
tional disharmony  in  the  supra-renal  bodies  might  pre- 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  121 

dispose  an  individual  to  crimes  of  violence,  just  as  a 
constitutional  disharmony  in  the  thyroid  gland  might 
predispose  a  child  to  idiocy. 

It  is  of  great  practical  importance  to  realise  that 
predispositions  to  certain  crimes,  like  predispositions 
to  certain  diseases,  may  form  part  of  the  individual 
inheritance;  and  that,  while  they  cannot  be  got  rid  of, 
their  development  in  the  individual  may  be  greatly  af- 
fected by  '  nurture  '.  A  roving  disposition  in  the  inher- 
itance may  easily  afford  the  starting-point  for  a  crim- 
inal career,  especially  if  the  first  or  second  '  roving  '  is 
branded  as  a  crime.  On  the  other  hand,  a  well- 
thought-out  system  of  nurture  may  use  the  roving  dis- 
position to  the  positive  advantage  of  society.  Many 
so-called  criminals  are  only  anachronisms.  It  is  not 
proposed  that  they  should  be  exempted  from  social 
selection;  what  is  desired  is  that  our  treatment  of 
them  should  be  intelligent. 

At  this  point  it  is  useful  to  refer  to  the  story  of  the 
Jukes,  as  told  by  Mr.  Dugdale  in  1877  and  brought  up 
to  date  in  I9i8(?)  by  Dr.  Estabrook.  "Into  an 
isolated  region,  now  within  two  hours'  railroad  journey 
of  New  York,  there  drifted  nearly  a  century  and  a  half 
ago  a  number  of  persons  whose  constitution  did  not 
fit  them  for  participation  in  a  highly  organized  society. 
There  were,  of  course,  various  degrees  of  inadequacy; 
and  the  retired,  well-wooded,  and  well-watered  valley 


122  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

[we  recall  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells's  wonderful  picture  of 
"  the  country  of  the  blind  "]  gave  many  of  the  immi- 
grants a  chance  to  pull  themselves  together.  It  was 
a  change  of  nurture,  and  some  profited  by  it;  but  per- 
haps the  conditions  were  too  easy.  Among  the  immi- 
grants who  did  not  profit  by  the  change  were  some 
uncontrolled  types  who  had  been  'assisted  out'  of 
Europe,  with  a  strong  hereditary  bias  towards  evil. 
From  such  came  the  Jukes.  Here  are  some  of  them: 
Max,  the  hunter  and  the  fisher,  the  jolly,  alcoholic 
ne'er-do-well;  Lem,  the  stealer  of  sheep;  Lawrence, 
the  licentious,  free  with  his  'gun';  Margaret  and 
Delia,  the  wantons;  and  Bell,  who  had  three  children 
by  various  negroes."  Dr.  Davenport,  who  writes  the 
preface  to  Dr.  Estabrook's  investigation  of  the  later 
history  of  the  Jukes,  points  out  that  inbreeding  of 
originally  bad  stock  made  matters  worse,  for  defects 
were  brought  in  from  both  sides.  Some  outbreeding 
with  good  stock  yielded  progeny  who  were  able  to 
hold  a  good  position  in  organised  society. 

Mr.  Dugdale  was  a  quiet  reticent  Englishman  resi- 
dent in  New  York,  who  had  an  unusually  lively  faith 
in  political  education,  and  was  keenly  interested  in 
social  reform.  On  an  official  visit  to  jails  in  County 
c  Z  '  in  the  State  of  New  York,  he  was  struck  by  find- 
ing prisoners  under  four  family  names  who  were  blood 
relations  in  some  degree.  He  set  to  work  to  discover 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  123 

the  hereditary  relations  and  the  nurture  of  these  un- 
fortunate people,  and  was  able  to  study  709  persons, 
540  being  Juke  blood,  and  169  of  '  X '  blood  who  had 
married  into  the  Juke  family.  He  found  that  there 
had  been  140  criminals  and  offenders,  60  habitual 
thieves,  and  so  on,  the  degenerate  lot  of  them  costing 
the  State  in  three-quarters  of  a  century  (beginning 
with  1800)  over  a  million  dollars.  Mr.  Dugdale  was 
a  careful  thinker,  and  what  his  book,  published  in 
1877,  really  showed  was  that  given  a  bad  hereditary 
nature  and  a  bad  environmental  nurture,  there  will  be 
a  multiplication  of  criminality,  harlotry,  and  pau- 
perism. 

It  should  be  noted,  if  it  is  not  too  obvious,  that 
the  name  Juke  was  fictitious,  and  that  the  names  of 
places  were  not  given,  so  that  the  publication  of  The 
Jukes  did  not  bring  about  a  result  like  that  which 
follows  giving  a  dog  a  bad  name.  Not  that  this  factor 
of  social  branding  can  ever  be  eliminated.  The  chance 
discovery  (in  1911)  of  Mr.  Dugdale's  original  manu- 
script made  it  possible  for  Dr.  Estabrook  to  bring 
the  dismal  story  of  the  Jukes  down  to  1915;  and 
the  sequel  is  not  less  instructive  than  the  book  it- 
self. 

Starting  with  five  Juke  sisters,  the  investigator  has 
found  out  a  good  deal  about  2,094  people,  of  whom 
1,258  were  living  in  1915.  To  about  a  half  of  the 


i24  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

total  the  somewhat  vague  term  "  feeble-minded  "  is 
applied;  the  history  of  the  other  half  seems  to  have 
varied  greatly — as  our  own  does — according  to  the 
social  nurture.  Let  us  take  a  few  particulars.  In 
1915  there  were  43  male  Jukes  between  the  ages  of 
15  and  1 8  anti-social  and  doing  poorly,  2  criminal, 
i  so  obviously  mentally  defective  as  to  be  noticeable 
to  the  general  community,  19  industrious.  In  1915  the 
number  of  males  over  19  and  of  females  over  15  was 
705;  of  these  305,  43  per  cent.,  were  described  as 
inimical  to  the  general  welfare  of  the  community,  in- 
cluding 41  criminal,  103  mentally  deficient,  83  intem- 
perate. But  152  were  industrious  and  65  were  classed 
as  good  citizens.  Of  these  good  citizens,  we  are  told 
that  "  the  bad  traits  which  have  held  down  their 
brothers  and  sisters  have  become  lost,  and  they  are 
fountain-heads  of  new  families  of  socially-good 
strain  ".  It  will  be  an  interesting  exercise  to  think 
out  what  is  meant  biologically  by  a  peculiarity  being 
"  lost  ". 

Some  of  Dr.  Estabrook's  general  conclusions  are 
interesting: — in  radically  defective  stock  cousin-mating 
results  in  defective  offspring;  there  is  a  clear  hered- 
itary factor  in  licentiousness;  all  the  criminals  in  the 
lineage  were  also  weak-minded;  one  in  four  Jukes  is 
improved  socially  by  Children's  Institutions;  the  ne'er- 
do-well  in  new  surroundings  often  finds  another  like 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  125 

himself,  but  improved  social  environment  counts  for 
much  in  the  individual's  development,  success  in  life, 
and  chance  of  marrying  into  a  better  family.  But  this 
only  applies  to  those  who  are  hereditarily  able  to 
respond  to  the  improved  nurture,  who  are  not  beyond 
the  pale  of  the  desirable. 

The  five  sisters  were  represented  in  1915  by  600 
feeble-minded  and  epileptic  Jukes,  of  whom  only  three 
were  in  custodial  care.  This  piece  of  statistics  sug- 
gests the  necessity  of  doing  something  to  stop  the  mul- 
tiplication of  Jukes — who  are  not  confined  to  America. 

Limits  to  the  Potency  of  Nurture. — So  far,  the  out- 
come of  this  chapter  is  a  reasoned  appreciation  of  the 
life-moulding  potency  of  nurture,  especially  as  regards 
the  individual.  But  there  are  certain  saving-clauses 
to  be  borne  in  mind,  (i)  Strong  natures  often  thrive 
well  on  hard  nurture,  just  as  oppression  often  stimu- 
lates love  of  freedom.  There  is  much  to  be  said 
against  making  things  too  easy  for  the  mediocre.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  reason  to  fear  that  a  good 
many  individualities  of  first-class  ability  are  still 
wasted  for  lack  of  appropriate  nurture.  It  is  certain 
that  many  quite  sound  organisms  slip  down  the  ladder 
of  evolution  more  because  of  deficiency  in  nurture 
than  through  deficiency  in  nature. 

(2)  Good  nurture  sometimes  makes  an  individual 
look  better  than  he  is;  and  there  is  an  unfortunate 


126  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

risk  of  veneering  rotten  wood.  The  '  unfortunate 
risk  '  is  lest  good  stock  be  tainted  by  the  introduction 
of  what  is  unsound  in  reality,  though  sound  in  appear- 
ance. It  may  be  remarked,  however,  that  it  is  absurd 
to  get  into  the  way  of  talking  as  if  society  was  made 
up  of  '  clean '  and  '  unclean ',  like  the  fauna  of  the 
Pentateuch,  or  of  desirables  and  undesirables,  saved 
and  damned.  "  We  are  not  all  the  finest  Parian,"  as 
George  Eliot  said.  Furthermore,  family  histories  are 
not  buried  in  obscurity,  and  a  degree  of  unsoundness 
which  can  escape  the  attention  of  parental  eyes  quick- 
ened by  love,  the  experience  of  the  family  physician, 
and  the  everyday  tests  of  work  and  play,  is  not 
likely  to  be  so  very  unsound.  Apart  from  mar- 
riage certificates,  which  will  probably  come,  what  is 
common-sense  for?  What  has  been  wrong  in  the  past 
has  often  been  that  obvious  unsoundness  was  winked 
at. 

(3)  Deteriorative  nurture  sometimes  makes  people 
look  worse  than  they  are;  and  there  is  an  unfortunate 
risk  of  confusing  dints  due  to  the  blows  and  buffetings 
of  outrageous  fortune  with  outcrops  from  within.  The 
social  consequences  of  giving  a  dog  a  bad  name  are 
familiar,  and  it  is  to  be  feared,  for  instance,  that  there 
are  more  criminals  made  than  there  are  born.  As  it 
is  said  in  the  Gospels:  it  is  what  cometh  from  within 
that  defiles  a  man. 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  127 

§  5.    The  Other  Side  of  Heredity. 

The  past  lives  on  in  the  present,  that  is  what  is 
meant  by  heredity.  There  is  an  inexorableness  in  the 
transmission,  or  one  should  rather  say,  the  persistence 
of  all  sorts  of  inborn  or  constitutional  characteristics. 
Sometimes  it  is  a  trivial  feature  like  a  shock  of  white 
hair;  sometimes  it  is  a  deadly  vice  of  blood;  some- 
times it  is  all  bodily,  leaving  the  spirit  unblemished, 
as  in  many  cripples;  sometimes  it  is  a  blot  on  the 
brain  that  affects  the  character  now  in  this  way  and 
again  in  that,  but  always  perniciously.  There  is  no 
gainsaying  the  fatalistic  impression,  and  since  heredity 
is  just  a  term  for  the  relation  of  organic  continuity 
between  successive  generations,  there  can  be  no  other 
side  to  it.  But  there  is  no  harm  in  using  the  phrase 
"  the  other  side  of  heredity "  to  indicate  that  the 
fatalistic  impression  of  determinateness  is  not  the 
whole  truth.  There  is  another  side  to  the  inevitable 
reappearance  of  an  evil  past,  another  side  to  the  inex- 
orable transmission  of  defects,  another  side  to  the  ter- 
ribly discouraging  hereditary  handicapping,  another 
side  to  the  undeniable  lien  that  our  ancestry  has  over 
us.  We  must  drie  our  weird,  but  we  need  not  sur- 
render the  captaincy  of  our  soul. 

(i)  Perhaps  it  is  unwise  to  seek  much  satisfaction 
in  uncertainties  that  surround  inheritance,  which  lead 


128  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

some  people  to  "  risk  it  ",  as  they  say.  For  the  uncer- 
tainties are  disappearing.  Yet  we  may  be  pardoned 
for  recalling  a  really  beautiful  expression  of  the  unpre- 
dictability of  heredity  from  Thomas  Fuller's  Scripture 
Observations: — "  Lord,  I  find  the  genealogy  of  my 
Saviour  strangely  checkered  with  four  remarkable 
changes  in  four  immediate  generations. 

"  i.  Roboam  begat  Abia;  that  is  a  bad  father  begat  a 
bad  son. 

"  2.   Abia  begat  Asa;  that  is  a  bad  father  a  good  son. 

"  3.   Asa  begat  Josaphat;  that  is  a  good  father  a  good  son. 

"4.  Josaphat  begat  Joram;  that  is  a  good  father  a  bad 
son. 

"  I  see,  Lord,  from  hence,  that  my  father's  piety 
cannot  be  entailed;  it  is  bad  news  for  me.  But  I  also 
see,  that  actual  impiety  is  not  always  hereditary;  that 
is  good  news  for  my  son." 

(2)  Perhaps  one  is  a  little  apt  to  forget  that  the 
hereditary  relation  is  even-handed.    It  is  for  better  as 
well  as  for  worse.     It  secures  the  entailment  of  all 
manner  of  wholesome  human  qualities.     Nay  more, 
when  we  take  a  broad  view,  it  is  more  than  even- 
handed,  for  there  is  more  likelihood  of  the  hereditary 
entailment  of  the  stable,  the  harmonious,  and  the  in- 
tegrative.    The  dice  are  loaded  in  our  favour. 

(3)  There  is  a  continual  variability  or  creativeness 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  129 

which  affords  fresh  raw  material  for  progress.  The 
mould  is  always  being  broken,  and  the  image  cast  over 
again.  But  this  metaphor  is  too  static;  it  is  better 
science  to  say  that  the  little  child  is  always  leading 
the  race.  Against  the  fact  of  persistent  hereditary 
resemblance  has  to  be  set  the  fact  of  variability. 

(4)  We  do  not  really  know  how  novelties  take 
origin.  We  have  no  recipe  for  the  production  of 
organic  movements  in  the  direction  of  heritable  vigour 
or  intelligence,  beauty  or  goodness.  But  the  specula- 
tion is  worth  considering  whether  beneficial  changes 
of  nurture  may  not  evoke  beneficial  variations  in  the 
perm-cells.  We  know  that  individual  children  often 
take  big  strides  after  they  have  had  a  change  to  a  new 
environment — a  new  world  of  liberating  stimuli.  Is 
it  ridiculous  to  suppose  that  this  may  be  true  of  the 
implicit  potential  organisms  we  call  germ-cells?  As 
Prof.  E.  B.  Wilson,  one  of  the  wisest  of  living  biolo- 
gists, has  said,  "  In  the  present  defective  state  of  our 
knowledge  we  may  well  grant  that  there  may  be  many 
a  thing  between  germ-cell  and  body  that  is  not 
dreamed  of  in  our  biological  philosophy."  In  the 
opinion  of  Professor  Bateson,  than  whom  none  has 
more  right  to  be  listened  to,  it  is  a  reasonable  view 
that  environmental  change  may  lead  to  abnormal  divi- 
sions in  the  ripening  germ-cells,  and  that  these  ab- 
normal cell-divisions  are  the  starting-points  of  new 


130  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

varieties.  Broadening  this,  we  may  suggest  that 
changes  in  nurture  may  have  an  unsuspected  impor- 
tance as  the  liberating  stimuli  of  germinal  varia- 
tions. 

(4)  The  quality  of  nurture,  which  is  largely  in 
Man's  own  hands,  determines  the  degree  to  which  the 
buds  of  good  qualities  in  our  inheritance  may  be  made 
to  unfold,  and  the  buds  of  bad  qualities  may  be  kept 
more  or  less  dormant.    We  do  not  know,  when  we  are 
young,  at  any  rate,  all  that  is  in  our  inheritance; 
it     is     common-sense     to    give    it    every    chance, 
with  as  varied  a  nurture  as  we  can.    This  is  one  of 
the  reasons  for  embarking  on  adventure,  when  there 
is  a  chance,  before  our  voyaging  is  narrowed  down 
to   a    stated    course.      As    long   as    we    are    young 
— we  discover  ourselves  gradually — we  do  not  know 
all  that  is  in  our  inheritance;  the  common-sense  advice 
is  not  to  take  too  many  chances,  not  to  play  with 
fire,  and  to  let  our  sleeping  dogs  lie,  if  we  can. 

(5)  For  the  individual  there  is  great  plasticity,  as 
the  result  of  changes  in  environment  and  function. 
Man  is  very  modifiable  and  educable.    And  though  the 
resulting  modifications  do  not  seem  to  be  transmissible 
as  such,  they  can  be  reimpressed  if   desirable,  on 
generation  after  generation.    In  her  interesting  study, 
Environment    and    Efficiency    (1912),    Miss    Mary 
Homer  Thomson  tells  of  her  study  of  265  children, 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  131 

mostly  of  "  the  lowest  class  "  (Class  A,  fourth  below 
the  poverty  level!),  who  had  been  sent  to  institutions 
and  trained.  She  found  that  192  (72  per  cent.)  turned 
out  well;  that  44  (16  per  cent.)  were  doubtful;  and 
that  only  29  (less  than  n  per  cent.)  were  unsatisfac- 
tory, and  of  these  13  were  defectives.  One  would  like 
to  know,  of  course,  that  the  turning-out-well  lasted, 
and  one  would  like  to  have  a  hundred  similar  sets  of 
figures.  But  the  suggestion  is  that  nurture  means 
much  to  the  individual. 

Professor  Punnett  probably  expresses  the  views  of 
most  biologists  when  he  says:  "Hygiene  and  educa- 
tion are  influences  which  can  in  some  measure  check 
the  operation  of  one  factor  [(what  in  the  germ-cell  is 
causally  related  to  a  character  in  the  adult)]  or  en- 
courage the  operation  of  another.  But  that  they  can 
add  a  factor  for  a  good  quality,  or  take  away  a  factor 
for  an  evil  one  is  utterly  opposed  to  all  that  is  known 
of  the  facts  of  heredity."  But  there  are  modifications 
that  hygiene  and  education  can  imprint  on  the  or- 
ganism, and  the  very  fact  that  these  are  not  hered- 
itarily entailed  should  lead  us  to  an  increased  appre- 
ciation of  their  importance.  Desirable  modifications 
can  be  impressed  on  each  successive  crop  and  unde- 
sirable modifications  evaded.  It  should  also  be  borne 
in  mind,  though  it  is  rather  a  speculation  than  a  fact, 
that  desirable  modifications  hammered  on  generation 


132  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

after  generation  may  serve  as  a  protective  screen  for 
an  inborn  variation  evolving  from  within  in  the  same 
direction. 

And  apart  from  particular  modifications,  this  also 
should  be  realised,  that  thoroughly  bad  nurture  may 
arrest  the  development  of  the  general  constitution,  re- 
ducing vigour  and  reacting  power.  This  may  be 
cumulative  if  the  bad  nurture  persists,  though  not  per- 
haps hereditary  in  the  strict  sense.  Contrariwise,  a 
notable  improvement  in  good  nurture  may  raise  the 
whole  pitch  of  the  individual  offspring's  life,  with  the 
result  that  the  individual  makes  more  of  his  oppor- 
tunities, and  in  turn  secures  still  better  nurture  for 
his  children. 

(6)  There  is  another  consideration  that  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  and  in  no  way  speculative.  What 
is  particularly  characteristic  of  Man  is  his  external 
registration  of  the  gains  of  evolution.  His  extra- 
organismal  organisation — so  far  away  from  the  ant- 
hill or  beehive — includes  fresh  air,  pure  water,  sound 
food,  pleasant  houses,  leisure,  and  so  on  up  to  tradi- 
tions and  institutions,  literature  and  art.  All  this  is 
part  of  our  nurture,  and  the  chances  of  a  promiseful 
new  departure  developing  and  persisting  must  depend 
considerably  on  the  reception  it  meets  with  in  the 
externally  systematised  nurture.  The  evolution  of 
'  nurture  '  must  accompany  the  evolution  of  *  nature  ' 


THE  INFLUENCES  OF  NURTURE  133 

if  progress  is  to  be  secure.  In  our  social  heritage, 
which  is  as  supreme  as  our  natural  inheritance  is  fun- 
damental, there  are  ever-widening  opportunities  for 
transcending  the  trammels  of  protoplasm.  Wherefore, 
let  us  lift  up  our  hearts. 


CHAPTER  V. 
THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH. 

§  i.  The  Meaning  of  Health. — §  2.  The  Body  as  Engine — 
and  More. — §  3.  The  Nervous  System. — §  4.  The 
Regulative  System— §  5.  What  Is  Disease? 

§  i.    The  Meaning  of  Health. 

WE  need  not  delay  over  definitions  of  health,  for 
every  one  knows  in  a  general  way  what  the  priceless 
gift  means.  It  is  much  more  than  the  absence  of 
disease,  it  implies  a  positive  quality  of  versatile 
vigour;  and  that  depends  on  the  harmonious  working 
of  the  chief  parts  of  the  body.  It  need  not  mean  great 
strength,  a  powerful  dray-horse  is  often  far  from 
healthy,  but  it  always  implies  a  pleasurable  efficiency. 
It  is  the  condition  which  a  man  describes  when  he 
says  he  is  feeling  "  very  fit ",  when  he  is  able  for 
vigorous  and  enduring  self-expression.  He  feels  "  a 
man  for  a'  that ",  not,  as  Samuel  Butler  said,  a  mere 
appanage  of  his  wife  or  some  other  near  relative. 

But  we  have  to  widen  this  idea  of  internal  fitness  by 
recognising  that  the  ideal  of  health  includes  fitness  to 
the  external  conditions  of  life  in  so  far  as  these  are 

134 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        135 

of  a  kind  that  make  for  the  conservation  and  enrich- 
ment of  life.  The  healthy  man  must  be  able  to  adjust 
himself  to  circumstances  without  losing  his  foothold; 
he  must  be  able  to  respond  to  stormy  as  well  as  sunny 
days;  he  must  have  a  fair  measure  of  resisting  power 
to  the  invasions  of  disease-germs  and  to  other  deteriora- 
tive influences. 

Yet  health,  we  must  admit,  is  a  relative  quality,  and 
our  attainment  of  it  is  not  usually  more  than  approxi- 
mate, (i)  One  reason  for  this  is  that  many  of  us 
start  with  some  hereditary  handicap,  sometimes 
trivial,  sometimes  serious.  All  that  we  can  do  is  to 
recognise  and  understand  this  handicap,  and  to  estab- 
lish by  wholesome  surroundings  and  habits  a  set  of 
counteractives.  (2)  But  there  is  a  larger  reason — 
namely,  that  Man's  bodily  organisation  does  not  in  its 
evolution  keep  pace  with  his  habits  and  surroundings. 
Thus  it  is  that  some  old-established  parts  of  our  struc- 
tures, which  have  done  duty  admirably  for  ages,  do 
not  suit  quite  so  well  in  the  artificial  conditions  of 
modern  life.  They  lag  behind  and  give  rise  to  what 
are  called  bodily  '  disharmonies  '. 

For  an  understanding  of  bodily  disharmonies  we 
owe  much  to  the  insight  of  the  Russian  biologist, 
Metchnikoff  (d.  1916),  though  he  tended,  like  many 
other  discoverers,  to  overstrain  his  bow.  The  reduc- 
tion of  the  snout  region  and  the  enlargement  of  the 


136  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

forehead  became  possible  among  our  arboreal  ances- 
tors by  the  emancipation  of  the  arm  from  being  an 
organ  of  support  for  the  body,  as  it  is  in  quadrupeds, 
and  by  the  promotion  of  the  hand — the  free  hand — 
to  the  office  of  testing  things,  grasping  things,  and  lift- 
ing some  of  them  to  the  mouth.  But  one  of  the  far- 
off  consequences  was  a  crowding  of  the  teeth  in  the 
jaw,  and  this,  accentuated  in  modern  man,  has 
given  rise  to  many  problems  of  dentistry,  and  to  a 
considerable  amount  of  handicapping  disharmony 
among  otherwise  healthy  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren. 

To  take  another  illustration,  Man  is  heir  to  some 
thirty  feet  of  food-canal,  with  a  naked-eye  surface  of 
7  to  8  square  feet.  Part  of  the  canal  seems  to  be  of 
much  more  trouble  than  it  is  worth.  In  early  days, 
Man  had  to  eat  a  good  deal  of  bulky  and  crude  food, 
which  meant  a  considerable  amount  of  undigested 
residue,  which  accumulated  in  the  large  intestine. 
This  was  all  very  well  in  early  days.  In  modern 
times,  however,  among  civilised  people,  Man  has  been 
able  to  procure  much  better  food — with  much  less  use- 
less stuff  about  it,  not  that  we  can  safely  dispense 
with  hardness  of  texture  and  a  measure  of  bulk.  And 
besides  getting  better  food,  Man  now  tends  to  eat  more 
sparingly  than  in  days  gone  by.  Moreover,  for  the 
most  part,  he  no  longer  eats  when  he  can,  but  has 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        137 

regular  meals  served  with  more  or  less  punctuality. 
Now  these  changes  of  habit  are  robbing  the  large  intes- 
tine of  an  appreciable  part  of  its  utility,  and  it  is  a 
not  infrequent  seat  of  disease  as  well  as  a  source  of 
poisoning.  (3)  But  besides  hereditary  weaknesses  and 
disharmonies  there  are  other  reasons  why  Man's  health 
is  apt  to  be  only  approximate.  Perhaps  these  may  be 
summed  up  by  saying  that  Man's  instincts  are  very 
generalised  and  that  his  restless  intelligence  prompts 
him  to  experiment  with  himself  and  to  '  chance 
things  '.  He  has  very  little  of  a  resting  instinct;  he 
has  relatively  little  clear  awareness  of  what  is  good 
for  him;  he  does  not  understand  the  significance  of 
pain  and  sleeplessness  as  danger-signals;  he  is  so  safe 
in  his  stronghold  of  wits  that  he  runs  risks  for  the 
sake  of  immediate  pleasure.  In  a  way  quite  unique 
among  organisms  he  uses  artificial  means  to  stimulate 
his  energies  or  to  dull  the  sense  of  fatigue,  and  how- 
ever useful  or  pleasant  these  means  may  be,  no  one 
can  pretend  that  they  do  not  involve  some  risk.  By 
ambition,  zeal,  or  dire  necessity,  man  is  often  forced 
to  overwork  himself,  and  then  he  often  seeks  "  the 
shortest  way  out,"  for  alcoholism  is  often  the  nemesis 
of  an  attempt  to  evade  occupational  fatigue.  In  the 
very  imperfectly  organised  social  systems  of  to-day  it 
is  often  very  difficult  for  an  ordinary  citizen  to  secure 
a  mode  of  life  that  allows  enough  open  air,  exercise, 


138  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

and  change.     And  so  Man  falls  from  the  norm  of 
health. 

§  2.    The  Body  as  Engine. 

An  animal  is  much  more  than  an  engine,  for  it  is 
self-stoking,  self -regulating,  self-adjusting,  self-repair- 
ing; it  can  register  experiences  and  profit  by  them; 
it  is  more  or  less  aware  of  what  it  is  doing,  and  often 
plans  and  purposes;  it  can  give  rise  or  help  to  give 
rise  to  other  creatures  like  itself.  We  have  elsewhere 
(The  System  of  Animate  Nature,  Gifford  Lectures, 
1920)  tried  to  do  justice  to  the  deep  differences  be- 
tween an  animal  and  a  whirlpool  in  the  river,  or 
between  an  animal  and  a  machine  (which  is  the 
embodiment  of  a  human  idea),  and  we  hold  firmly  to 
the  belief  that  a  philosophical  justification  can  be 
given  for  the  common-sense  belief  that  one  enters  a 
new  world  when  one  passes  from  the  domain  of  things 
— the  inorganic — to  the  realm  of  organisms,  the  obvi- 
ously animate.  But  for  purposes  of  investigation  it  is 
often  very  useful  to  treat  the  body  as  if  it  were  an 
engine,  and  for  the  purposes  of  study  it  is  also  very 
useful  to  think  of  it  in  this  way. 

Many  books  have  been  written  about  the  structure 
of  our  body,  but  perhaps  the  most  illuminating  plain 
account  is  that  given  by  Prof.  Arthur  Keith  under  the 
title  The  Engines  of  the  Human  Body  (1920).  His 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        139 

idea  was  to  compare  the  structure  of  the  living  body 
to  that  of  an  engine,  and  to  follow  the  comparison  till 
it  broke  down,  as  break  down  it  did.  An  engine  is  a 
mechanical  contrivance  for  changing  matter  and 
energy  from  one  form  to  another  in  order  to  do 
work;  and  our  body  is  a  living  contrivance  which  does 
this  and  more  besides.  For  we  cannot  forget  that  we 
think  and  feel. 

If  we  ascend  a  hill  road  on  a  motor-cycle,  we  get  to 
the  top  by  mechanical  work,  the  power  or  energy  being 
supplied  by  the  internal-combustion  engine  which 
makes  the  wheels  go  round.  If  we  ascend  a  hill  road 
on  foot,  we  get  to  the  top  by  mechanical  work,  the 
power  or  energy  being  supplied  by  our  muscles  which 
move  those  levers  we  call  our  limbs.  But  the  metal 
engine  works  by  pushing  the  crank-pin;  it  has  a  rigid 
cylinder  and  a  rigid  piston.  Whereas  the  flesh  engines 
or  muscles  work  by  pulling,  and  as  they  work  they 
change  their  shape;  and  their  piston-rods  are  flexible, 
we  call  them  sinews  or  tendons.  A  muscle  is  a  <  pull ' 
engine;  a  motor  cycle  is  a  '  push '  engine. 

Walking,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  is  a  very 
wonderful  performance,  and  we  cannot  be  surprised 
that  it  took  us  a  good  long  time  to  learn.  Nor  do  we 
all  walk  as  well  as  we  should.  When  we  are  walking 
at  the  rate  of  four  miles  an  hour,  only  half  a  second 
elapses  from  the  moment  the  heel  of  the  foot  is  raised 


140  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

until  the  limb  completes  its  swing  forward  and  the 
foot  is  planted  firmly  on  the  ground  again.  Yet  in 
that  half-second  fifty-four  muscles  or  flesh-engines 
have  been  started  and  stopped,  speeded  up  and  slowed 
down,  and  that  not  once  or  twice  but  many  times. 

Another  very  interesting  thing  is  this,  that  when  our 
right  leg  swings  forward,  the  whole  weight  of  our  body 
is  balanced  on  the  slippery  ball-shaped  head  of  the 
left  thigh  bone  which  works  in  the  socket  of  the  hip- 
joint.  It  is  difficult  to  balance  a  weight  on  a  slippery 
ball-and-socket  joint;  it  would  not  be  possible  were  it 
not  that  about  fifteen  muscles  surrounding  the  hip- 
joint  are  set  in  action  and  work  together,  acting 
against  each  other,  and  yet  in  harmony  with  each 
other.  But  the  balancing  feat  is  helped  by  many  other 
muscles  in  our  momentarily  stationary  left  leg,  some 
at  the  knee,  some  at  the  ankle,  and  some  at  the  arch 
of  the  foot.  And  next  half -second  all  this  will  be  hap- 
pening in  our  right  leg.  Nor  is  this  all,  for  as  we  walk 
we  keep  our  body  erect;  our  backbone  does  not  sway 
unduly  forwards  or  backwards,  to  one  side  or  to  the 
other.  But  our  backbone  is  made  up  of  many  ver- 
tebrae, and  to  these  144  muscles  are  attached  which 
give  our  body  what  we  call  poise.  Indeed,  there  are 
about  300  muscles  concerned  when  we  walk.  As 
Professor  Keith  says,  "  With  every  step — every 
half-second — some  three  hundred  engines  have  been 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        141 

started,  regulated,  and  stopped,  and  each  has  done  its 
allotted  task  in  helping  the  body  forward."  Were  we 
not  right  in  saying  that  walking  is  really  a  quite  won- 
derful achievement? 

When  we  draw  our  lower  arm  towards  our  upper 
arm,  e.g.  in  lifting  a  teacup  to  our  lips,  we  use  a  big 
muscle  called  the  biceps,  which  we  can  feel  working 
if  we  grasp  our  right  arm  just  above  the  elbow  with 
the  fingers  of  our  left  hand.  As  the  forearm  draws 
nearer  the  upper  arm,  we  feel  the  biceps  muscle  con- 
tracting; it  becomes  shorter  and  broader  and  harder 
under  our  fingers.  The  muscle  is  fixed  above  to  the 
shoulder-blade;  it  is  fixed  below  by  means  of  its 
piston-cord  or  tendon  (mainly)  to  the  radius  bone  of 
the  forearm.  When  it  contracts  it  lifts  up  the  forearm 
and  bends  the  elbow.  Now  this  biceps-muscle  is  a 
huge  collection  of  muscle-fibres — half  a  million  in  the 
arm  of  a  working-man — each  of  which  is  a  sort  of 
microscopic  engine-cylinder.  In  the  motor-cycle  the 
space  inside  the  cylinder  is  lengthened  when  an  effec- 
tive stroke  is  made;  we  are  dealing  with  a  'push* 
engine.  In  the  muscle-fibre,  the  cylinder  itself  be- 
comes shorter  and  wider;  we  are  dealing  with  a  t  pull ' 
engine.  In  the  motor-cycle  the  energy  is  supplied  by 
the  explosive  combustion  or  oxidation  of  the  petrol. 
In  the  muscle,  the  affair  is  more  complicated,  for  the 
using  up  of  the  oxygen  is  not  in  the  contraction  itself, 


i42  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

it  is  in  the  process  which  instantaneously  restores  the 
muscle-fibre  to  a  state  that  makes  another  contraction 
possible.  In  fact,  no  one  yet  knows  the  secret  of  the 
muscle-engine. 

But  if  we  say  cautiously  that  the  muscles  are  pecu- 
liar engines,  living  engines,  we  may  usefully  continue 
to  compare  them  to  the  internal-combustion  engines 
of  the  motor-cycle.  They  are  engines  of  great  merit; 
they  work  so  smoothly,  with  so  little  noise;  they  al- 
ways have  their  '  steam  up ',  ready  to  start  working 
at  a  moment's  notice;  some  of  them  never  stop  work- 
ing all  through  life,  while  others  are  able  to  take  a 
rest.  They  work  in  pairs,  opposed  to  one  another, 
and  when  one  muscle  goes  into  action  a  message 
travels  into  the  nervous  system  and  orders  come  back 
so  that  the  opponent  muscle  yields  just  to  the  right 
extent.  They  say  that  the  best  engine  man  has  yet 
made  does  not  turn  more  than  20  per  cent,  of  the 
energy  of  the  fuel  into  effective  work,  whereas  our 
muscles  can  turn  about  25  per  cent,  of  their  fuel  or 
food  into  effective  work.  Then  the  muscles  are  self- 
stoking,  self-repairing  engines,  requiring  no  looking 
after  from  us,  making  no  demands  save  one — that  they 
be  exercised. 

The  motor-cycle  works  obviously  by  wheels,  which 
are  very  complicated  levers;  our  movements  are 
brought  about  by  more  ordinary  levers — the  bones. 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        143 

Students  of  mechanics  know  well  that  there  are  three 
kinds  or  orders  of  levers,  and  these  are  all  illustrated 
in  our  body — the  first  order  in  the  movement  of  the 
skull  on  the  backbone;  the  second  order  in  the  foot; 
the  third  order  in  the  forearm  and  hand  when  the 
elbow  is  the  fulcrum.  Where  one  bone  works  on 
another  there  are  cartilage-building  cells  that  make 
good  the  wear  of  the  joint  surface — an  impossibility 
in  a  metal  engine;  and  when  these  cells  have  worked 
themselves  out  they  are  dissolved  to  form  a  lubricant. 
Thus  our  joints  are  kept  from  wearing  away;  thus  our 
joints  are  kept  supple.  Like  the  engine,  the  body  has 
its  lubricating  arrangements. 

But  the  muscle-engines  require  to  have  fuel  brought 
to  them,  and  the  living  levers  require  to  be  kept  in 
good  order;  so  we  see  the  use  of  the  heart  as  the  pump 
of  the  body.  It  drives  round  the  body  a  combustion- 
mixture  (oxygen  and  blood-sugar)  which  is  compar- 
able to  the  oxygen  and  petrol  which  is  brought  into 
the  motor-cycle's  internal-combustion  engine.  In  both 
cases  the  waste  products  have  to  be  swept  away.  The 
piston  of  the  motor-cycle  is  made  to  do  the  pumping 
as  well  as  the  actual  work;  in  our  body  the  pumping 
apparatus  (the  heart)  and  the  locomotor  apparatus 
(the  muscles)  are  quite  separate  from  one  another. 

The  motor-cycle  would  not  work  if  it  could  not  draw 
in  fresh  air  and  drive  out  foul  air;  and  the  arrange- 


144  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

ment  for  this  is  comparable  to  the  pair  of  bellows 
which  we  call  our  chest.  Our  windpipe  is  an  air-pipe; 
our  nose  is  a  nozzle;  the  engines  that  work  the  bellows 
are  carefully  built  into  the  sides  and  front  and  floor 
of  the  chest. 

The  bodily  engine  is  able,  as  we  have  seen,  to  get 
more  work  out  of  its  fuel  or  food  than  any  engine  of 
man's  constructing,  and  this  depends  (i)  on  the 
internal  workshops  or  laboratories  which  prepare  the 
food  so  that  the  engines  make  the  most  of  it;  (2)  on 
the  regulations  that  keep  up  in  birds  and  mammals  a 
constant  body-temperature  (between  98°  and  99° 
Fahrenheit  in  man);  and  (3)  on  the  thorough  arrange- 
ments for  preventing  the  accumulation  of  any  form  of 
waste.  We  are  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made. 

There  is  a  sort  of  timing  or  regulating  system  in  a 
motor-cycle,  a  series  of  revolving  toothed  wheels  set 
so  as  to  be  turned  by  the  crank  shaft  at  fixed  rates, 
but  the  regulation  of  the  living  body  is  so  different 
that  Professor  Keith  wisely  drops  the  comparison. 
Our  body,  he  says,  is  more  like  an  army.  There  are 
millions  of  millions  of  microscopic  living  units  or  cells, 
many  with  considerable  independence,  yet  all  working 
with  considerable  perfection  into  one  another's  hands 
and  so  that  a  unified  harmonious  result  follows.  The 
brain  and  spinal  cord  correspond  to  General  Head 
Quarters;  the  nerves  form  a  living  telegraphic  system; 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        145 

and  there  is  an  altogether  marvellous  postal  system  by 
which  "  key-missives  "  are  despatched  throughout  the 
body.  These  "  key-missives  "  (chemical  messengers 
or  hormones)  which  are  sent  from  ductless  glands,  like 
the  thyroid  gland,  throughout  the  body  are  compared 
by  Professor  Keith  to  "  ultra-microscopic  Yale  keys 
sent  out  to  search  for  the  locks  of  letter-boxes  which 
they  fit  and  can  enter  ".  Some  kinds  of  key  will  fit 
only  one  kind  of  lock,  and  the  lock  seems  to  have  a 
positive  attraction  for  the  appropriate  key.  Again 
we  must  say:  We  are  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made. 

It  is  very  useful  to  compare  our  body  to  an  engine, 
but  the  comparison  breaks  down.  In  particular,  the 
regulation  of  the  living  body  is  something  that  we  can- 
not explain  in  terms  of  anything  else.  If  the  body  is 
an  engine,  it  is  a  self-stoking,  self-repairing,  self- 
regulating  engine;  it  can  profit  by  experience;  it  can 
behave  as  a  self-willed  agent;  it  can  work  along  with 
others;  it  may  give  rise  to  another  engine  like  itself, 
as  parents  to  their  children.  But,  above  all,  the  living 
body  is  a  Mind-body. 

The  general  idea  to  be  grasped  is  that  the  body  is 
a  material  system  for  transforming  the  energy  of  food 
into  the  energy  of  motion,  whether  that  be  the  move- 
ment of  limbs  in  locomotion  or  the  beating  of  the 
heart.  The  furnace,  the  boiler,  the  piston  are  all,  as 
it  were,  condensed  in  the  muscular  system.  To  keep 


i46  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

the  fire  burning  there  must  be  a  supply  of  fuel,  which 
is  prepared  in  our  food-canal  and  liver.  To  keep  the 
fire  burning  there  must  be  air,  and  the  lungs  are  the 
ventilating  structures.  To  keep  the  fire  burning  there 
must  also  be  a  removal  of  the  ashes,  and  this  is 
effected  by  the  lymph  and  by  the  blood  which  sweep 
the  waste-products  to  filters  like  the  kidneys.  There 
must  also  be  arrangements  for  regulating  the  supply 
of  fuel,  the  draught,  the  speed,  and  so  on.  Anticipat- 
ing a  little,  we  may  say  that  the  obvious  conditions 
of  the  continued  efficiency  of  the  bodily  engine  are 
plenty  of  varied  exercise,  plenty  of  food,  sufficient 
rest,  and  adequate  removal  of  waste-products. 

§  3.    The  Nervous  System. 

As  Sir  Michael  Foster  said,  there  are  two  master- 
activities  in  the  body,  and  all  the  rest  are  ancillary  or 
sustentative.  One  of  the  master-activities  we  have 
already  dealt  with  very  briefly — the  contractility  resi- 
dent in  the  muscular  system.  The  other  master- 
activity  is  the  irritability  resident  in  the  nervous  sys- 
tem. This  implies  feeling  and  controlling,  in  its 
higher  reaches,  thinking  and  purposing.  It  is  the 
nervous  system — especially  the  brain — that  starts, 
regulates,  and  controls  the  motor  apparatus  repre- 
sented by  the  muscles.  In  some  ways  the  nervous 
system  is  like  a  storage-battery,  contributing  the 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        147 

initial  spark  that  sets  the  combustion  a-going.  In  other 
ways  it  is  the  intermediary  between  the  rest  of  the 
engine  and  the  outer  world,  so  that  suitable  responses 
are  made.to  what  happens  outside.  It  is  also  the  inter- 
mediary between  the  various  parts  of  the  body,  so 
that  they  work  into  one  another's  hands  harmoniously. 
The  learned  word  for  this  function  is  integrative — 
making  many  members  a  whole  (see  C.  S.  Sher ring- 
ton's  Integrative  Action  of  the  Nervous  System). 

An  understanding  of  the  general  nature  of  the  nerv- 
ous system  is  indispensable  if  we  are  to  understand 
health  even  a  little  bit;  so  we  must  linger  over  some 
fundamental  facts. 

(A)  Our  nervous  system  consists  of  (i)  the  brain 
• — a  world  in  itself  with  many  nerve-centres  integrated 
into  unity;  (2)  the  spinal  cord — a  complicated  tract 
of  pathways  apparently  innumerable  and  of  subor- 
dinate centres;  (3)  the  nerves  which  issue  from  the 
brain  and  the  spinal  cord,  some  consisting  of  fibres 
which  carry  messages  only  inwards  (sensory  or  affer- 
ent), some  consisting  of  fibres  which  carry  messages 
only  outwards  (motor  or  efferent),  and  some  consist- 
ing of  fibres  of  both  kinds;  (4)  the  sympathetic  sys- 
tem— a  series  of  small  nerve-centres,  connected  with 
the  brain  and  spinal  cord,  which  have  to  do  with  the 
control  of  blood-vessels,  food-canal,  heart,  and  so  on. 
The  sensory  nerves  carry  messages  from  superficial 


i48  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

sense-organs  or  sense-cells,  and  from  sensory  nerve- 
endings  on  internal  organs.  The  motor  or  efferent 
nerves  carry  commands  to  muscles  stimulating  them 
to  contract,  and  to  glands  stimulating  them  to  secrete. 
There  are  also  efferent  nerves  that  command  inaction, 
inhibiting  rather  than  stimulating. 

(B)  The  nervous  system  consists  of  millions  of 
microscopically  minute  elements — nucleated  cell-bodies 
— which  receive,  shunt,  store,  and  combine  messages 
received  from  the  outside  world  and  from  the  recesses 
of  the  body,  and  which  also  send  out  orders  to  the 
muscles  and  glands  and  other  parts.  The  messages 
that  come  in  and  go  out  are  carried,  in  some  way 
that  we  do  not  understand,  by  nerve-fibres,  which  are 
very  delicate  outgrowths  of  the  cell-bodies.  The  cell- 
body  and  its  fibres  taken  together  form  a  nerve-cell 
or  nerve-unit,  or  neuron.  The  cell-bodies  (often  called 
the  ganglion  cells)  are  like  the  telephones  of  a  tele- 
phonic system,  and  a  certain  set  of  them  form  the 
'  central '.  The  nerve-fibres  are  like  the  wires,  and 
one  set  of  wires  (called  sensory  or  afferent)  carry 
messages  to  a  cell-body  or  telephone,  while  another 
set  (called  motor  or  efferent)  carry  messages  from  a 
cell-body  or  telephone.  The  comparison  is  a  useful 
one,  but  it  must  not  be  pressed  far.  Thus  the  l  Cen- 
tral '  Office  in  a  telephonic  system  may  connect  one 
telephone  with  another  for  purposes  of  intercommuni- 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        149 

cation,  but  it  is  not  supposed  to  store  and  combine 
messages  as  our  brain  does. 

Besides  (a)  the  sensory  neurons  which  carry  mes- 
sages inwards,  and  receive,  store,  shunt,  or  otherwise 
deal  with  them,  and  (£)  the  motor  neurons  which 
issue  and  carry  orders,  there  are  (c)  many  neurons 
which  link  the  other  two  kinds  together  within  the 
central  nervous  system.  These  are  called  connecting, 
communicating,  or  internuncial  cells,  and  they  actually 
form  the  bulk  of  the  central  nervous  system.  In  some 
of  them  intelligence  is  at  home. 

Besides  the  neurons  there  are  in  the  nervous  sys- 
tem supporting  cells  (the  neuroglia)  and  blood- 
vessels, and  these  weigh  much  more  than  the  nerve- 
elements  alone.  It  is  interesting  to  notice  in  passing 
a  quite  unique  thing  about  the  nervous  system,  and 
that  is  the  extraordinary  length  of  some  of  the  nerve- 
fibres,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  are  outgrowths  of 
nerve-cells.  In  Man,  for  instance,  some  of  the  fibres 
that  issue  from  the  spinal  cord  in  the  small  of  the 
back  and  reach  to  the  toes  are  far  more  than  a  yard 
long,  and  they  must  be  longer  still  in  a  giraffe. 

(C)  A  great  part  of  our  nervous  activity  consists 
of  what  are  called  reflexes.  Our  finger  touches  some- 
thing hot  or  sharp  and  we  draw  it  away  without  know- 
ing or  willing.  That  is  a  simple  reflex  action;  what 
is  it  that  happens?  An  external  stimulus  acting  on 


150  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

the  nerve-endings  in  our  finger-tips  is  followed  by  a 
message  which  travels  by  sensory  nerve-fibres  up  our 
arm  to  cells  in  the  ganglia  on  the  dorsal  roots  of  the 
spinal  nerves;  the  signal  is  passed  on  from  these  re- 
ceiving elements  into  the  spinal  cord  and  stimulates 
internuncial  cells;  from  these  the  message  is  passed 
on  to  the  cord  to  the  motor  nerve-cells  that  give  out 
orders;  a  command  is  sent  via  motor  nerve-fibres  to 
the  muscles,  and  effective  action  results, — all  in  a 
shorter  time  than  we  take  to  say  "  Jack  Robinson  ". 
These  reflexes  occur  independently  of  our  will;  they 
take  place  in  virtue  of  certain  structural  connections 
which  are  established  in  the  nervous  system  in  the 
course  of  development.  A  sensitive  nerve-ending  is 
linked  to  a  receptive  neuron,  this  to  an  internuncial 
cell,  this  to  a  motor  neuron,  and  this  to  a  muscle.  The 
linkages  are  established  as  part  of  our  inheritance,  and 
though  people  differ  in  the  rapidity  of  their  reflexes, 
there  is  a  common  stock  shared  by  all  mankind.  The 
example  we  took  was  a  very  simple  reflex;  every  one 
is  familiar  with  many  that  are  more  complex,  such  as 
coughing,  sneezing,  sucking,  swallowing,  shivering.  It 
would  take  us  a  long  time  to  learn  to  sneeze,  but  the 
infant  sneezes  without  a  lesson.  Some  biologists  would 
say  that  its  body  unconsciously  remembers  how  to 
sneeze;  what  is  certain  is  that  an  inborn  organisation 
has  made  the  process  of  sneezing  easy  and  in  certain 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        151 

conditions  irresistible.  Reflexes,  the  capacity  for 
which  is  inborn,  must  not  be  carelessly  mixed  up  with 
reactions  which  have  become  very  rapid  and  facile  in 
the  course  of  long  practice,  e.g.  in  cricket,  tennis,  and 
bicycling.  This  facility,  properly  called  habitual,  is  of 
course  individually  acquired,  and  is  the  outcome  of  a 
process  of  learning  which  is  anything  but  facile  to 
begin  with. 

Very  important  are  the  internal  reflexes  that  only 
physiologists  know  much  about.  These  are  responses 
that  organs  of  the  body  make  to  messages  from  other 
parts  of  the  body,  or  to  changes  in  the  composition 
of  the  blood.  When  we  are  excited  by  good  news  and 
the  heart  beats  with  unusual  vigour,  there  is  an  auto- 
matic enlargement  of  the  blood-vessels  so  that  there 
is  a  free  outlet  for  the  blood. 

(Z>)  In  some  way  that  we  do  not  understand,  our 
personality  is  more  bound  up  with  our  nervous  system 
than  with  the  rest  of  our  body.  Our  quickness  or 
slowness,  alertness  or  dullness,  cheerfulness  or  gloomi- 
ness, reliability  or  fecklessness,  good-will  or  selfishness, 
are  wrapped  up — in  our  ordinary  life  inextricably — 
with  our  very  wonderful  nervous  system.  Some  peo- 
ple believe  that  our  inmost  self  uses  the  nervous  sys- 
tem as  a  musician  uses  a  piano,  and  compare  the 
disorder  of  mind  illustrated  in  the  delirium  of  fever, 
or  the  decay  of  mental  vigour  in  the  aged  to  dis- 


152  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

turbances  or  wear  and  tear  in  the  instrument.  Others 
think  that  the  inner  life  of  consciousness — feeling, 
thinking,  and  willing — is  one  aspect  of  our  mysterious 
living,  and  that  the  physico-chemical  bustle  that  goes 
on  in  the  nervous  system  is  the  other  aspect  of  the 
same  reality.  The  two  aspects  are  inseparable,  like 
the  concave  and  the  convex  surfaces  of  a  dome;  but 
no  metaphor  is  of  any  use,  the  relation  is  quite  unique. 
This  is  one  of  the  oldest  of  riddles,  and  Tennyson 
made  "The  Ancient  Sage"  say: — 

Thou  canst  not  prove  that  thou  art  body  alone, 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  that  thou  art  spirit  alone, 
Nor  canst  thou  prove  that  thou  art  both  in  one: 

For  nothing  worthy  proving  can  be  proven, 
Nor  yet  dis proven. 

Yet  three  things  seem  to  us  to  be  quite  certain: 

(1)  Our  nervous  system  is  a  scientific  actuality  that 
can  be  measured  and  weighed;  it  is  complex  beyond 
our  power  of  conception,  if  only  because  of  the  mil- 
lions of  living  units  which  it  includes;  it  is  the  seat 
of  an  extraordinary  activity  which  baffles  our  imagina- 
tion.   No  theoretical  view  can  stand  that  is  subversive 
of  the  fundamental  reality  of  our  nervous  system. 

(2)  Even  more  real,  however,  if  there  are  degrees  of 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        153 

reality,  is  our  inner  life  of  consciousness,  our  stream 
of  thoughts  and  feelings,  desires  and  purposes.  It  is 
our  supreme  reality,  for  it  includes  all  others,  and  no 
theoretical  view  can  stand  that  is  subversive  of  this 
reality.  (3)  But  the  third  certainty  is  that  organism 
and  personality,  body  and  mind,  nervous  metabolism 
and  consciousness,  are  in  the  experience  of  everyday 
life  interdependent.  If  it  is  a  relation,  there  is  nothing 
to  which  we  can  compare  it;  if  it  is  a  unity,  it  is 
equally  unique.  We  are  mind-bodies  or  body-minds; 
sometimes  we  feel  more  of  the  one,  sometimes  more 
of  the  other. 

We  are  born  with  ready-made  structural  arrange- 
ments which  make  a  number  of  reflex  actions  at  once 
possible.  We  have  the  power  of  adding  to  reflexes  a 
certain  number  of  habitual  accomplishments,  and  we 
differ  notably  among  ourselves  in  our  readiness  to  ac- 
quire dexterity.  We  are  also  born  with  a  limited  num- 
ber of  old-established  instinctive  predispositions,  which 
express  themselves  in  impulses  along  certain  lines  of 
behaviour.  As  to  higher  activities,  we  cannot  say 
much  more  than  this,  that  our  inheritance  includes  a 
marvellous  cerebral  organisation  of  a  certain  pattern, 
which  puts  into  our  hands  a  number  of  aptitudes 
rather  than  ready-made  accomplishments.  We  have 
to  learn  most  things,  and  we  are  above  all  creatures 
educable.  Using  the  abundant  material  supplied  by 


154          THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

the  sensory  elements,  we  build  up  an  intellectual 
framework.  Perhaps  it  is  better  to  say,  that  endowed 
with  a  certain  cerebral  surface-relief,  we  soon  become 
the  possessors  of  a  characteristic  stream  of  inner  life 
— a  stream  of  thought  and  feeling  and  other  mental 
activities.  As  our  experience  grows,  what  may  be 
called  the  stream-system  becomes  more  complicated. 
The  system,  which  has  the  analogues  of  banks  and 
pools,  tributaries  and  overflow  beds,  quiet  reaches  and 
rapids,  is  conditioned  by  the  flow  of  the  stream,  but, 
in  turn,  conditions  it.  Eddies  are  always  forming  in 
the  stream,  and  some  we  call  memories.  There  is 
stagnancy  of  thought  and  there  are  floods  of  feeling 
that  erode  new  beds.  But  soon  our  metaphor  breaks 
down,  for  we  cannot  apply  it  to  our  customary  experi- 
menting with  ideas  or  to  the  controlling  power  that 
we  have  over  our  behaviour.  We  are  able  to  do  *  in 
our  head '  what  we  do  objectively  in  experimenting  in 
the  laboratory. 

The  complexity  of  elements  and  activities  in  our 
nervous  system  is  quite  unimaginable.  Thus  there 
are  in  the  convoluted  part  of  our  fore-brain  (the 
cerebral  cortex)  five  or  six  times  as  many  nerve-cells 
as  there  are  human  beings  in  the  world,  and  the  com- 
plexity of  inter-relations  is  past  all  telling.  There  is 
a  rush  of  multitudinous  orders  always  issuing  from  the 
brain,  and  there  is  also  a  torrent  of  impressions — 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        155 

from  eye,  ear,  nose,  tongue,  finger-tips,  skin,  and  the 
deep  internal  organs — that  flows  into  our  central  nerv- 
ous system,  keeping  us  awake  and  conscious.  All  this 
means  wear  and  tear,  and  the  formation  of  subtle 
waste-products,  even  the  production  of  heat.  We  have 
only  to  think  of  the  complexity  to  realise  the  impor- 
tance of  sleep  and  rest.  We  understand  also  the  value 
of  a  sleep  in  which  the  signals  from  eye  and  ear  have 
stopped.  It  may  be  a  gift  to  be  able  to  sleep  any- 
where, but  the  better  sleep  is  that  in  quiet  and  dark- 
ness. It  is  also  well  that  besides  the  signals  from 
eye  and  ear,  those  from  the  food-canal  should  have 
stopped. 

Living  is  in  some  ways  an  extraordinarily  tough 
kind  of  activity;  the  way  our  intricate,  finely  adjusted 
nervous  system  stands  treatment  which  we  should 
never  dream  of  giving  even  to  our  watch,  speaks 
volumes  for  its  tenacity.  But  it  does  not  always  stand 
it  so  well  as  we  think. 

From  Prof.  G.  H.  Parker's  luminous  lectures  on 
Biology  and  Social  Problems,  which  every  one  inter- 
ested in  either  half  of  the  title  should  read,  we  ven- 
ture to  take  a  few  figures,  and  to  these  we  should 
append  a  moral.  Sensations  and  memories,  intellec- 
tual experiments  and  volitions  have  their  seat  in  the 
cortex  of  the  fore-brain,  a  wrinkled  or  convoluted 
field,  which,  if  smoothed  out,  would  cover  a  little  over 


156  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

a  foot  and  a  half  square.  This  convoluted  cortex 
weighs  about  658  grammes,  rather  under  a  pound  and 
a  half,  but  most  of  this  is  due  to  blood-vessels  and 
supporting  tissue.  The  nerve  elements  taken  by 
themselves  are  said  to  weigh  only  about  13  grammes, 
rather  under  half  an  ounce.  In  a  man  weighing  150 
pounds,  the  cerebral  cortex  would  be  only  about 
i/Soooth  of  the  whole,  yet  this  rules  all  the  rest  of 
the  body.  It  is  a  little  less  than  a  cubic  inch  of  mate- 
rial altogether,  yet  it  may  shake  the  whole  world.  It 
is  indescribably  complex,  and  includes  not  far  from 
9,200  million  cells,  between  five  and  six  times  the  1,700 
millions  of  human  beings  believed  to  inhabit  the  earth. 
The  moral  is:  Take  care  of  it! 

Another  very  important  fact  concerning  our  nervous 
system  is  that  the  number  of  the  nerve-cells  is  not 
added  to  after  birth.  In  most  parts  of  the  body  there 
is  renewal  of  worn-out  cells,  but  not  in  the  central 
nervous  system.  Many  tissues  in  the  body  are  made 
afresh  far  oftener  than  once  in  seven  years,  as  popu- 
lar estimate  puts  it,  but  nerve-cells  are  not  replaced. 
The  cells  of  the  skin,  of  the  lining  of  the  food-canal, 
of  the  glands,  and  of  the  blood  get  worn-out  and 
others  take  their  place.  We  are  said  to  have  about 
25  trillions  of  red  blood  corpuscles,  occupying  3,300 
square  yards  if  spread  out  on  a  surface.  These  cells 
are  continually,  as  it  were,  wearing  out,  and  being 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        157 

replaced  by  fresh  units,  but  we  never  get  a  new  nerve- 
cell  after  birth.  The  moral  is  plain,  that  over-fatigue 
is  more  serious  for  nerve-cells  than  for  other  cells,  and 
an  injury  to  a  cluster  of  them  may  be  very  serious 
indeed. 

§  4.    The  Regulative  System. 

We  have  seen  that  the  muscles  correspond  to  the 
motor  parts  of  the  bodily  engine;  that  the  nervous 
system  is  the  storage  battery,  the  sparking  apparatus, 
the  steering  gear,  and  the  observant  driver  besides; 
that  the  fuel  is  the  food  which  the  stomach  prepares 
and  the  liver  stores;  that  the  air  for  combustion  is 
supplied  by  the  lungs;  that  the  blood  distributes 
oxygen,  digested  food,  and  lubricant  substances,  and 
collects  carbon  dioxide  and  nitrogenous  waste-prod- 
ucts; and  that  the  latter  are  filtered  out  by  the  kid- 
neys. We  must  now  consider  the  regulative  system. 

Paul  the  Apostle  had  a  very  vivid  conception  of  the 
correlation  or  harmonious  working  together  of  parts. 
"  There  are  many  members  and  one  body.  The  eye 
cannot  say  to  the  hand  '  I  have  no  need  of  you ',  nor 
again  the  head  to  the  feet  '  I  have  no  need  of  you '. 
Quite  the  contrary.  Yes,  God  has  tempered  the  body 
together,  with  a  special  dignity  for  the  inferior  parts, 
so  that  there  may  be  no  disunion  in  the  body,  but 
that  the  various  members  should  have  a  common  con- 


158  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

cern  for  one  another  "  (i  Cor.  XII;  Moffat's  Transla- 
tion). 

Discoveries,  still  in  rapid  progress,  in  regard  to 
certain  apparently  '  inferior  parts ',  the  organs  of  in- 
ternal secretion,  have  profoundly  changed  our  whole 
scientific  picture  of  the  internal  economy  of  the  body. 
A  few  illustrations  must  be  given. 

One  of  the  most  important  digestive  organs  in  the 
body  is  the  pancreas  or  stomach-sweetbread.  It  pours 
into  the  beginning  of  the  intestine  a  large  quantity  of 
digestive  ferments,  which  attack  all  the  different  kinds 
of  food — the  starchy,  the  fatty,  and  the  proteid.  For 
a  long  time  it  has  been  known  that  this  secretion  of 
ferments  was  most  copious  after  meals,  and  this  was 
usually  attributed  to  orders  coming  through  the  nerv- 
ous system,  commanding  the  pancreas  to  secrete 
abundantly  at  the  appropriate  time.  But  Professors 
Bayliss  and  Starling  showed  (about  1905)  that  a  sub- 
stance called  secretin  is  made  by  cells  in  the  wall  of 
the  intestine  under  certain  conditions  of  food,  is  car- 
ried away  by  the  blood,  and  on  reaching  the  pancreas 
provokes  secretion.  The  secretin  is  a  specific  mes- 
senger, carried  by  the  blood,  which  provokes  an  an- 
swer when  it  reaches  the  appropriate  place.  Such 
chemical  messengers  or  internal  secretions  were  called 
by  Professor  Starling  "  hormones  ". 

The  thyroid  gland  near  Adam's  apple  furnishes  to 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        159 

the  blood  an  internal  secretion  which  is  essential  to 
the  continued  health  of  body  and  mind.  Deficient 
thyroid  gland  results  in  children  who  are  dwarfish  and 
lumpish  and  dull,  of  defective  intelligence.  In  adult 
life  thyroid  deficiency  may  bring  on  sluggishness,  a 
decline  of  intelligence,  and  a  disease  called  myxcedema. 
It  has  been  one  of  the  triumphs  of  medical  art  to 
cure  or  ameliorate  these  conditions  by  giving  the 
patients  injections  of  thyroid-extract  or  by  feeding 
them  on  sheep's  thyroid.  This  recalls  the  old  pre- 
scriptions that  the  coward  should  eat  of  the  heart 
of  a  lion,  and  the  simple  of  the  liver  of  a  fox. 

Thirdly  we  may  mention  the  adrenal  bodies  which 
lie  at  the  anterior  margin  of  the  kidney,  and  produce 
from  their  central  portion  a  substance  called  adrenalin, 
which  is  distributed  by  the  blood.  When  an  animal 
is  enraged  or  in  great  fear,  the  secretion  of  adrenalin 
increases,  blood  passes  from  the  abdomen  to  lungs, 
heart,  nervous  system  and  limbs,  the  heart  beats  more 
vigorously,  the  amount  of  sugar  (a  muscle  food)  in 
the  blood  increases,  the  blood  acquires  a  greater  power 
of  quickly  clotting,  and  the  muscles'  power  of  rapid 
recovery  from  fatigue  is  heightened — all  a  most  mar- 
vellous pre-adaptation  to  physical  struggle. 

Returning  now  to  our  engine — with  its  motor,  stor- 
age, battery,  ventilator,  and  so  on,  we  see  that  there 
are  intricate  arrangements  which  supplement  the 


160  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

nervous  system  in  securing  the  smooth  working  to- 
gether of  parts.  The  thyroid,  for  instance,  has  a 
good  deal  to  do  with  the  control  of  speed — with  the 
control  of  the  rate  of  combustion;  and  the  adrenals 
seem  to  play  a  continuous  role  in  the  neutralisation 
of  acid  waste-products. 

§  5.    What  Is  Disease? 

It  is  told  of  one  of  the  great  French  chemists, 
Chevreul,  that  when  he  was  interviewed  in  his  hun- 
dredth year  and  asked:  "  Have  you  always  had  a  good 
digestion?  "  he  answered  out  of  the  fullness  of  his 
vigour:  "  I  really  cannot  say,  for  I  have  never  no- 
ticed." This  is  quite  ideal;  it  indicated  a  great  har- 
mony of  internal  processes.  The  antipathy  which  un- 
sophisticated people  have  to  learning  about  the  works 
of  the  living  engine,  is  in  a  way  quite  sound.  For  we 
really  should  not  know  anything  directly  about  organs 
like  the  stomach  and  liver — hard-working  structures 
quite  unobtrusive  when  well-used.  The  body  is  a 
great  laboratory  in  which  upbuildings  and  down- 
breakings,  combustions  and  fermentations,  dissolvings 
and  filterings  go  on  in  crowded  order.  They  are  all 
summed  up  in  the  word  metabolism,  which  means 
change.  We  may  speak  of  them  as  vital  processes. 
And  the  idea  we  must  grasp  is  that  health  spells  har- 
mony of  vital  processes,  while  disease  means  metabo- 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        161 

lism  out  of  place,  out  of  time,  and  out  of  tune.  What 
is  disease  in  one  animal  may  be  normal  in  another. 
What  would  be  ominous  at  one  time  of  life  may  be 
natural  at  another. 

Disease  is  a  disturbance  of  the  body's  wholesome 
routine,  and  there  is  progress  simply  in  realising  this. 
Our  forefathers  thought  of  disease  as  a  mysterious 
potency,  stalking  out  from  the  unknown,  and  seizing 
a  man  by  the  throat.  There  may  be  a  truth  in  think- 
ing of  disease  as  a  visitation  or  a  judgment,  but  a 
great  part  of  the  value  of  the  truth  is  lost  if  we  do 
not  understand  that  disease  is  often  an  inevitable  con- 
sequence of  our  carelessness,  or  ignorance,  or  slug- 
gishness, or  foolhardiness.  When  the  disciples  asked 
Christ  about  the  man  blind  from  his  birth,  "  For 
whose  sin — for  his  own  or  for  his  parents7 — was  he 
born  blind?  ",  they  were  not  thinking  about  heredity 
or  about  the  transmission  of  acquired  characters,  or 
about  blindness  due  to  infection  before  birth,  they 
were  thinking  of  the  blindness  as  a  judgment  imposed 
from  without.  That  idea  of  disease  must  be  given  up. 

Perhaps  we  get  to  some  clearness  by  distinguishing 
three  kinds  of  diseases,  considered  in  a  large  biological 
way.  These  are  constitutional,  microbic,  and  modifi- 
cational.  Constitutional  diseases  are  due  to  some  de- 
ficiency or  exaggeration  or  perversion  in  the  hereditary 
organisation,  and  as  the  deficiency  or  exaggeration  or 


162  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

perversion  is  likely  to  be  continued  from  generation 
to  generation,  it  is  generally  said  that  these  consti- 
tutional diseases  are  hereditary.  It  is  probably  more 
accurate  to  say  that  what  persists  is  not  exactly  the 
disease,  but  the  predisposition  to  the  disease.  As  the 
predisposition,  like  every  other  item  in  our  inheritance, 
requires  suitable  nurture  if  it  is  to  be  fully  expressed, 
there  is  some  hope — and  an  increasing  one — of  letting 
the  sleeping  bud  sleep.  The  possibility  is  not  great, 
however,  if  the  nurture  which  predisposition  to  the 
disease  requires  if  it  is  to  express  itself  is  just  the 
average  nurture  of  everyday  life.  It  is  probable  that 
gout,  albuminuria,  and  some  forms  of  diabetes  and 
nervous  instability  are  examples  of  constitutional 
disease.  The  biological  tactics  are  to  try  by  counter- 
active nurture  to  save  the  body  from  having  to  fight 
a  battle  with  two  fronts — which  is  seldom  hopeful. 

The  second  class  of  diseases  may  be  called  microbic. 
These  diseases  are  due  to  the  invasion  of  the  body 
by  injurious  organisms — usually  of  microscopic  size. 
Some  of  the  microbes  incline  to  the  plant-like  mode 
of  life,  and  most  of  these  are  called  bacteria.  Thus 
bubonic  plague  (the  Black  Death),  cholera,  tuber- 
culosis, tetanus,  typhoid  fever,  and  many  other  dis- 
eases are  due  to  bacteria.  Other  microbes  incline  to 
the  animal  mode  of  life  or  are  undoubted  animals. 
Thus  sleeping  sickness,  malaria,  and  syphilis  are  due 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        163 

to  microscopic  animals  or  Protozoa.  Some  larger  ani- 
mal parasites  sometimes  cause  very  serious  human 
diseases.  Thus  about  every  third  native  of  Lower 
Egypt  suffers  from  a  very  serious  disease  called 
Bilharziasis,  which  is  due  to  a  worm  allied  to  the 
liver-fluke  of  sheep.  One  of  the  great  life-savers  of 
the  period  of  the  Great  War  was  Dr.  Leiper,  who  dis- 
covered the  life-history  of  the  Bilharzia-worm,  and  has 
shown  how  its  invasion  of  the  human  body  may  be 
frustrated.  In  connection  with  these  microbic  and 
parasitic  diseases,  we  must  understand  that  conquering 
them  depends  in  many  cases  on  discovering  the  life- 
history  of  the  intruder.  A  remarkable  fact  which  has 
made  mastery  at  first  more  difficult,  and  eventually 
easier,  is  that  many  of  these  pests  require  to  spend 
part  of  their  life  in  one  host  and  part  of  their  life  in 
another.  Thus,  the  malaria  microbe  spends  part  of  its 
life  in  the  mosquito,  the  sleeping  sickness  microbe 
spends  part  of  its  life  in  the  tsetse  fly.  Apart  from 
cases  where  a  human  parasite  must  pass  part  of  its 
life  within  another  host,  there  are  many  cases  where 
insects  or  the  like  act  as  '  carriers '  or  distributers. 
Thus,  the  house-fly  is  a  great  distributer  of  typhoid. 
When  microbes  enter  the  body,  what  do  they  do? 
They  make  and  liberate  poisons  which  are  often  very 
prejudicial  to  the  tissues.  By  their  activity  they  may 
also  break  down  membranes  and  cause  structural  in- 


1 64  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

juries  or  lesions.  They  may  multiply  so  enormously 
that  they  block  up  passages,  and  there  are  other  ways 
in  which  they  work  mischief.  Luckily  we  have  two 
great  counteractives — we  have  a  bodyguard  of  wan- 
dering amoeboid  cells  or  Phagocytes — really  a  particu- 
lar kind  of  white  blood  corpuscle — which  engulf  and 
digest  microbes,  and  there  are  several  destructive  sub- 
stances or  antitoxins  in  the  fluid  of  the  blood  which 
counteract  the  poisons  of  the  intruders.  In  various 
artificial  ways  it  is  possible  to  increase  the  protective 
efficiency  of  both  these  natural  defences  of  the  body. 

In  the  third  place,  besides  constitutional  and  mi- 
crobic  diseases  there  are  modificational  diseases  which 
are  due  to  peculiarities  in  nurture.  Lead-poisoning 
and  rickets  in  children  are  two  well-known  examples. 
All  who  work  in  the  gold-mines  at  Johannesburg  get 
their  lungs  infiltrated  with  the  fine  dust.  When  the 
staple  food  is  rice,  the  disease  of  beri-beri  sets  in  if 
the  rice  be  eaten  without  its  outer  coat.  There  are 
many  diseases  directly  induced  by  deteriorative  pecu- 
liarities in  occupations  and  surroundings. 

It  follows  from  our  previous  studies,  that  modifica- 
tion-diseases are  not  transmissible,  though  indirect 
effects  may  influence  the  child  prejudicially  through 
the  mother;  that  microbic  diseases  are  not  transmis- 
sible, though  a  susceptibility  to  them  may  be,  and 
though  very  early — ante-natal — infection  may  bring 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        165 

about  a  semblance  of  hereditability.  The  diseases 
that  are  heritable  are  constitutional  diseases,  and  in 
many  cases  what  is  entailed  is  not  so  much  the  disease 
as  a  tendency  or  predisposition  in  that  direction. 

We  can  give  but  a  sketchy  answer  to  a  question 
which  the  inquisitive  layman  often  asks:  What  exactly 
happens  when  a  disease  sets  in  and  upsets  the  finely 
established  harmony  of  health?  Three  things  that 
happen  may  be  noted,  (i)  A  common  thing  is  the 
overfatigue  of  a  particular  structure.  The  heart  is  a 
muscular  organ,  about  the  size  of  our  closed  fist,  which 
70-80  times  a  minute  throws  3%  ounces  of  blood 
into  the  aortic  tube  against  considerable  pressure. 
When  it  is  in  good  condition  and  has  a  lot  to  do,  it 
draws  upon  its  reserves  and  becomes  stronger,  but  this 
has  its  limits.  In  certain  conditions  it  may  get  over- 
worked beyond  its  great  recuperative  power.  When  it 
is  too  strained  to  do  its  work  well,  the  circulation  is 
less  active,  and  all  the  body  suffers. 

The  brain-cells  of  a  hive-bee  at  the  end  of  a  long 
day  show  structural  changes  as  the  result  of  fatigue. 
Food  and  rest  stave  off  the  inevitable  consequences  for 
days,  but  soon  the  cell  becomes  irrecoverably  fatigued. 
With  all  its  getting,  the  bee  gets  not  wisdom,  but  fool- 
ishness. So  with  ourselves,  a  using  up  of  vital  material 
which  is  not  compensated  for  by  the  renewal  which 
comes  in  repose  and  sleep,  results  in  neurasthenia. 


1 66  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

The  brain  is  fagged;  impressions  are  dull;  we  don't 
take  in  what  we  read;  doors  banged  as  they  never 
banged  before  and  our  shoe-lace  is  always  breaking; 
things  go  all  wrong;  we  hear  what  we  were  not  meant 
to  hear;  we  don't  sleep  well;  every  one  is  against  us — 
even  the  cocks  crowing  in  the  morning  are  in  the  con- 
spiracy. That  is  the  beginning  of  fatigue  disease. 
The  moral  is,  nip  it  in  the  bud. 

Fatigue  is  often  due  to  over-eating,  over-drinking, 
over-smoking,  and  the  like,  but  there  is  a  real  indus- 
trial fatigue  which  follows  from  over-strain.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  beyond  an  uncertain  limit  this  fatigue  lessens 
the  quality  of  the  work,  makes  the  body  less  resistant 
to  disease,  and  suggests  the  use  of  injurious  ways  of 
getting  rid  of  the  oppression  of  over-tiredness.  It  is 
in  the  interests  of  employers  and  workmen  alike  to 
find  out  the  limits  of  safety  for  the  organism's  health, 
the  limits  consonant  with  good  citizenship,  and  the 
limits  admitting  of  the  best  workmanship.  Where  the 
work  cannot  but  be  hard,  the  alleviations  of  good  air, 
plenty  of  light,  convenient  meals,  and  lightsome 
change  must  be  tried  and  are  being  tried.  (See  Lord 
Henry  Bentinck,  Industrial  Fatigue.  King,  1918,  6d.) 

The  biological  importance  of  change  is  recognized 
in  '  week-ends '  and  holidays,  and  in  many  other  fa- 
miliar ways.  We  need  to  recognise  it  more,  for  it 
staves  off  ageing.  Railways  and  other  means  of  rapid 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        167 

locomotion  have  made  it  possible  for  many  humble 
people  to  live  at  a  considerable  distance  from  their 
work,  and  have  in  the  opportunities  of  change  that 
they  multiplied  atoned  for  occasional  disfigurements. 
That  the  opportunities  are  often  abused  may  be  said 
of  every  new  door  that  is  opened. 

(2)  It    seems    well    established    that   worry    and 
anxiety  and  fear  contribute  greatly  to  break-down. 
This  operates  in  several  ways,  partly  through  over- 
fatiguing  some  particular  area  of  the  brain  where  is 
situated  that  particular  eddy  which  is  the  centre  of 
our  brooding.    But  in  another  way.    The  worry  and 
fear  have  fatigue  effects  in  various  parts  of  the  body 
which  influence  the  blood  (increasing  its  hydrogen- 
ion-concentration),  increasing  its  acidity.    If  this  goes 
on  increasing  beyond  the  neutralising  power  of  ad- 
renals and  liver,  then  there  is  a  break-down.     The 
moral  is,  "  Be  aisy,  and  if  you  can't  be  aisy,  be  as 
aisy  as  you  can."    Continuity  is  bad  for  us.    Changes 
are  lightsome.     There's  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for 
keeping  the  Sabbath. 

(3)  One  of  the  commonest  things  to  happen  is 
poisoning,  which  throws  part  of  the  system  out  of 
gear.     The  poisoning  may  be  due  to  intruding  mi- 
crobes; to  bad  food;  to  stimulants  and  narcotics;  and 
very  often  to  the  waste-products  of  food  which  has 
been  unused  or  imperfectly  used  within  the  body,  or 


1 68  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

to  other  waste-products  which  are  in  a  more  direct 
way  the  ashes  of  the  living  fire. 

No  Disease  in  Wild  Nature. — This  seems  the  place 
to  notice  a  fact  which  should  make  us  think  and  act; 
that  there  is  almost  no  disease  among  wild  animals. 
Wild  animals  grow  old,  but  they  are  never  senile.  Wild 
animals  have  many  parasites,  but  with  most  of  these 
they  have  established  live-and-let-live  relations.  Epi- 
demics due  to  microbes  sometimes  occur,  but  almost 
always  because  man  has  interfered,  e.g.  by  taking  ani- 
mals to  new  surroundings  where  they  encounter 
microbes  which  they  are  not  adapted  to  resist,  or  by 
killing  off  the  natural  eliminators  of  the  weakly,  or  by 
permitting  over-crowding,  or  by  infecting  soil  and 
water.  What,  then,  of  salmon  disease,  fowl  cholera, 
grouse  disease,  swine  fever,  and  so  on  through  a 
dreary  list?  These  occur  in  more  or  less  artificial, 
humanly  contrived  conditions;  and  the  same  is  prob- 
ably true  of  plant  diseases.  It  is  not  asserted  that 
variations  in  the  direction  of  weakness  and  abnor- 
mality and  disturbed  vital  processes  may  not  occur 
among  wild  animals,  but  they  seem  to  be  rare  and  they 
are  sifted  out  before  they  take  grip.  Disease  in  wild 
nature  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Why,  then,  is  it 
that  Man  has  diseases  always  with  him?  Because 
many  human  activities  and  surroundings  are  so  arti- 
ficial and  injurious,  because  modern  Man  has  poor 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        169 

resting  instincts  and  feeding  instincts  (Man  does  not 
even  scrutinise  his  food  as  a  monkey  does),  because 
Man  has  all  sorts  of  ways  of  evading  Nature's  sifting 
of  the  weakened  and  of  circumventing  consequences; 
because  social  sentiment  protects  the  weakly  and  dis- 
eased, which  is  right,  and  sometimes  allows  them  to 
multiply,  which  is  all  wrong.  Indoor  life,  crowded 
workshop  life,  crowded  home  life,  urban  life — all 
favour  disease,  but  their  evil  influences  can  be  largely 
counteracted. 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  great  strides  which 
have  been  made  in  modern  times  towards  the  mastery 
of  disease.  Man  has  control  of  smallpox,  diphtheria, 
bubonic  plague,  typhoid  fever,  syphilis,  and  some 
other  diseases.  Every  one  knows  that  smallpox  and 
typhus  are  now  rare  diseases  in  Great  Britain;  so  it 
will  be  with  other  microbic  diseases.  Modificational 
diseases  can  also  be  brought  under  control.  Thus,  one 
man  of  energy  and  insight,  Sir  Thomas  Oliver,  has 
enormously  reduced  the  miseries  of  lead-poisoning. 
The  constitutional  diseases  will  last  longest,  but  it  is 
likely  that  their  expression  can  be  increasingly  curbed 
by  careful  dieting  and  the  like.  Public  opinion  will 
probably  create  an  enlightened  prejudice  against  the 
allowing  the  more  serious  constitutional  proclivities, 
like  epilepsy,  to  spread. 

Danger  Ahead. — Involved  in  the  achievement  of 


170  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

conquering  disease,  however,  there  lurks  a  danger — 
the  danger  of  forgetting  causes  when  we  evade  con- 
sequences. To  get  injected  with  an  antitoxin  that 
makes  one  immune  to  a  disease  is  great  gain,  espe- 
cially when  the  disease  is  fortuitous  and  not  depend- 
ent on  oneself  at  all,  like  typhoid,  for  instance.  But 
this  sort  of  thing  will  not  be  gain  unless  man  also 
forges  ahead  with  improvements  in  surroundings,  oc- 
cupations, and  '  habits ',  removing  the  unwholesome 
factors  which  more  or  less  directly  engender  disease. 
Biological  progress  must  always  be  three-sided: — 
organism,  function,  environment;  people,  work,  place; 
the  creature  itself,  its  doings,  and  its  not-doi»gs. 

Positive  Health. — Talking  is  easier  than  acting,  but 
one  may  express  what  one  at  any  rate  sees  clearly,  that 
the  hopefulness  of  counteractive  and  curative  meas- 
ures will  be  greatly  increased  if  it  can  be  associated 
with  a  positive  raising  of  the  standard  of  human 
health  fulness.  This  is  an  obvious  but  fundamentally 
important  idea,  to  which  we  shall  return.  Just  as 
peace  is  not  merely  the  cessation  of  war,  but  a  positive 
ideal,  so  health  is  not  merely  the  absence  of  disease, 
but  a  positive  ideal.  It  means  a  reaching  forward 
towards  a  life  of  greater  fitness  and  fullness  and 
freedom. 

Mind  on  Body. — Where  the  metaphor  of  the  engine 
leads  us  farthest  astray  is  that  it  leaves  the  mind  out. 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  HEALTH        171 

The  ideal  is  a  healthy  body  at  the  service  of  a  healthy 
mind.  Let  us  take  an  illustration  of  the  influence  of 
mind  on  body. 

The  famous  physiologist  of  Petrograd,  Prof.  Ivan 
Petrovich  Pavlov,  was  the  first  to  demonstrate  the 
influence  of  the  emotions  on  the  health  of  the  body. 
Good  circulation  and  good  digestion  make  for  cheer- 
fulness, but  the  converse  is  also  true.  As  was  said 
very  long  ago,  "  He  that  is  of  a  merry  heart  hath  a 
continual  feast ",  and  "  A  merry  heart  is  the  life  of 
the  flesh ".  The  researches  of  Pavlov,  Cannon, 
Carlson,  and  Crile  have  shown  that  pleasant  emo- 
tions favour  the  secretion  of  the  digestive  juices,  the 
rhythmic  movements  of  the  food-canal,  and  the  ab- 
sorption of  the  aliment.  Contrariwise,  unpleasant 
emotional  disturbance  and  worry  of  all  sorts  hinder 
digestion.  Good  news,  psychical  if  anything  is,  may 
set  in  motion  a  series  of  vital  processes,  complex  be- 
yond the  ken  of  the  wisest.  What  is  true  of  digestion 
is  true  of  the  circulation.  Wordsworth  was  a  better 
physiologist  than  he  knew  when  he  spoke  of  his  heart 
leaping  up  at  the  sight  of  the  rainbow  and  filling  with 
pleasure  and  dancing  at  the  recollection  of  the  daf- 
fodils by  the  lakeside.  There  are  facts  which  point 
to  the  conclusion  that  a  gladsome  mind  increases  the 
efficiency  of  the  nervous  system.  Good  tidings  will 
invigorate  the  flagging  energies  of  a  band  of  explorers; 


172  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

an  unexpected  visit  will  change  a  wearied  homesick 
child,  as  if  by  magic,  into  a  dancing  gladsome  elf; 
a  religious  joy  enables  men  and  women  to  transcend 
the  limits  of  our  frail  humanity.  How  it  operates  is 
not  very  clear,  but  emotion  has  its  physical  accom- 
paniment in  motions  visible  and  invisible  throughout 
the  body.  Somehow  the  oil  of  joy,  as  the  Scriptures 
call  it,  makes  the  limbs  more  supple  and  the  face  to 
shine. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  forced  cheerfulness  is  a 
horror,  but  the  persistent  will  to  be  glad,  if  worthily  sat- 
isfied with  some  of  the  real  joys  of  life,  may  soon  be- 
come a  habit.  Those  who  find  good  reason  for  rejoic- 
ing— in  the  sunshine  and  stars,  in  the  flowers  and 
birds,  in  works  of  art  and  the  faces  of  their  friends 
— wish  for  no  reward,  but  they  will  get  it  all  the 
same. 

In  Conclusion. — Even  an  introductory  study  of  the 
Biology  of  Health  brings  into  prominence  two  ideas 
— (i)  that,  shelter  and  bolster  ourselves  as  we  may, 
survival  of  nationalities  among  mankind  must  ulti- 
mately in  part  depend  on  being  genuinely  healthy- 
bodied  and  healthy-minded;  and  (2)  that  the  effect 
upon  our  health  is  a  touchstone  of  behaviour  which 
we  can  use  within  certain  fields  with  some  subtlety, 
with  great  security,  and  with  much  profit  both  to 
ourselves  and  other  people. 


CHAPTER 
THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE 

§  i.  Different  Forms  of  Life-curve. — §  2.  The  Ante-natal 
Life. — §  3.  Infancy  and  Its  Fragility. — §  4.  The  Indi- 
vidual's Recapitulation  of  Racial  Evolution. — §  5.  Child- 
hood: Its  Playing  and  Schooling. — §  6.  Adolescence: 
Its  Adventures  and  Dangers. — §  7.  Trailing  in  Love — 
or,  rather,  Rising. — §  8.  Married  Life  and  Parental  Af- 
fection.—§  9.  The  Difficult  Age.—§  10.  The  Problem 
of  Growing  Old,  the  Art  of  Remaining  Young. 

§  i.  Different  Forms  of  Life-curve. 

ONE  man  differs  from  another  in  details  of  struc- 
ture and  temperament,  but  also  in  the  rate  of  the  vital 
processes.  In  blood-stream  and  in  thought-stream 
there  are  great  differences  in  the  rate  of  flow.  It  is 
a  well-known  biological  theory  that  the  fundamental 
difference  between  the  sexes  is  a  difference  in  the  rate 
of  certain  kinds  of  chemical  routine  or  metabolism. 

One  of  the  characteristic  features  of  life  is  cyclical 
development.  In  all  ordinary  creatures  life  is  a  very 
delicate  kind  of  activity  to  begin  with — a  flickering 
flame  easily  blown  out  by  a  gust.  But  the  creature 
develops  and  grows,  it  shows  increasing  complexity 

173 


174  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

and  division  of  labour  (differentiation)  and  increasing 
control  and  harmony  (integration);  it  secures  its  foot- 
hold and  gains  grip;  in  short,  there  is  an  ascending 
curve  of  gradually  increasing  strength.  Then  comes 
a  period  of  mature  efficiency,  with  which  reproduc- 
tivity  is  usually  associated.  The  creature  is  at  its 
prime.  Sooner  or  later,  however,  it  begins  to  relax 
a  little,  to  weaken,  and  to  grow  old.  It  passes  on  to 
the  downgrade  which  ends  in  death. 

The  general  fact,  then,  is  a  gradual  curve  upwards 
from  the  weakness  of  early  youth  to  the  full  strength, 
and  then  a  gradual  curve  downwards  to  the  weakness 
of  old  age.  "  And  so,  from  hour  to  hour,  we  ripe  and 
ripe,  and  then,  from  hour  to  hour,  we  rot  and  rot, 
and  thereby  hangs  a  tale."  But  just  as  some  animals 
have  a  long  youth  and  some  a  long  prime,  so  in  Man 
the  precise  shape  of  the  life-curve  varies  greatly  with 
the  individual,  and  is,  in  some  measure,  in  his  own 
hands.  There  are  averages,  of  course,  but  there  is  no 
precise  length  of  years  to  be  reckoned  to  youth,  or 
to  maturity,  or  to  senescence.  We  have  to  think  of 
the  threads  of  our  life  as  consisting  in  part  of  non- 
extensible  stretches  and  in  part  of  elastic  stretches. 
The  latter,  e.g.  the  stretch  of  cerebral  variability,  may 
be  lengthened  out  or  shortened  down.  Our  nature 
consists  of  a  great  many  of  these  threads,  and  we  may 
stretch  out  the  youth  of  some  of  them  while  we  cannot 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     175 

do  this  for  others.  In  spite  of  ourselves,  sometimes, 
certain  threads  in  our  composition  grow  old  prema- 
turely, losing  all  their  elasticity.  One  of  Professor 
Child's  very  curious  experiments  with  Planarian 
worms  shows  that  these  creatures  may  be  born  old 
if  their  parents  and  grandparents  are  restricted  to 
unsuitable  food.  So,  though  we  do  not  know  precisely 
how,  some  children  are  born  old.  Similarly  it  is  said 
of  the  victims  of  lead-poisoning  that  young  men  often 
look  middle-aged. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  rejuvenescent 
types  in  whom  certain  threads  remain  young  even 
when  the  tale  of  years  is  a  very  long  one.  Montaigne 
wrote  of  his  father:  "  I  have  scene  him,  when  hee  was 
past  threescore  years  of  old,  mocke  at  all  our  sports, 
and  out-countenance  our  youthfull  pastimes,  with  a 
heavy  furr'd  gowne  about  him  leap  into  his  saddle; 
to  make  the  pommada  round  about  a  table  upon  his 
thumb;  and  seldom  to  ascend  any  staires  without 
skipping  three  or  foure  steps  at  once."  He  at  any 
rate  might  have  been  appropriately  called  "  old 
boy  ". 

Illustrations. — A  few  examples  may  be  given  of  the 
way  in  which  life-histories  differ— by  altering  the 
'time'  of  the  different  stretches  of  the  life-curve, 
elongating  one  part  and  compressing  another,  length- 
ening here  and  telescoping  there.  Mayflies  often  have 


176  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

two  or  three  years  of  sub-aquatic  juvenile  life,  and 
only  two  or  three  days  of  adult  aerial  life.  The 
lampreys  are  young  for  four  or  five  years,  and  fully 
formed  for  some  years,  but  they  die  abruptly  after 
spawning,  as  eels  seem  also  to  do.  The  strange 
Peripatus — intermediate  in  some  respects  between 
worms  and  insects — may  carry  its  young  ones  before 
birth  for  a  whole  year,  for  they  must  be  born  ready 
to  fend  for  themselves.  Among  wild  horses  the  foal 
must  be  able  to  run  beside  its  mother  soon  after  birth, 
so  the  ante-natal  embryonic  period  is  drawn  out  to 
eleven  months.  In  the  oppossum  the  gestation  is 
sometimes  telescoped  down  to  a  fortnight,  for  the 
mother  carries  her  baby  after  birth  in  a  skin  pocket 
or  attached  to  her  tail.  In  bats,  which  are  highly 
specialised  mammals,  the  ante-natal  period  is  again 
very  short,  for  the  young  one  hangs  on  to  its  mother 
for  a  long  time  by  toes  and  thumbs  and  mouth,  and 
has  many  a  giddy  journey  through  the  air  before  it  is 
able  to  use  its  own  wings.  In  birds  the  juvenile  period 
is  often  very  short — mound-birds  can  actually  fly  the 
day  they  are  hatched — for  it  is  a  precarious  time.  In 
mammals  the  tendency  is  the  other  way,  to  lengthen 
out  the  youthful  period  into  a  playing  time,  when  this 
can  be  done  with  safety.  There  are  many  interesting 
facts  of  this  sort,  but  all  that  we  need  here  is  an 
illustration  of  the  suggestive  idea  that  one  chapter  in 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     177 

the  life-cycle  may  be  lengthened  out  and  another 
telescoped  down.  We  know  in  part  how  this  can  be 
done,  namely,  by  variations  in  the  rhythm  of  the 
regulatory  system — the  organs  of  internal  secretion. 
It  may  also  be  effected  in  mankind  by  enlightened 
adjustments  of  function  and  responsibility,  and  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  true  civilisation  implies  a 
lengthening  out  of  the  youthful  period.  This  is  per- 
haps more  marked  in  women  than  in  men.  A  welcome 
fact  is  the  lengthening  of  life  that  is  going  on  in  our 
midst;  thus  the  span  of  life  in  England  seems  to  have 
increased  by  about  a  third  since  1865.  Still  more  wel- 
come is  a  lengthening  of  youth  and  of  full  strength. 
But  we  must  look  for  even  more — the  improvement  of 
the  health-rate  and  the  raising  of  the  standard  of 
health. 

§2.    The  Ante-Natal  Life. 

The  first  chapter  in  the  life-cycle  is  that  before 
birth — the  ante-natal  life.  It  is  the  time  of  early  de- 
velopment, when  the  egg-cell  divides  and  differentiates 
to  form  an  embryo,  when  this  pinhead-like  germ  grows 
— at  first  with  amazing  rapidity — into  a  creature  thou- 
sands of  times  bigger  and  millions  of  millions  of  times 
heavier  than  itself.  It  is  the  time  when  out  of  seeming 
simplicity  there  is  coined  and  minted  obvious  com- 
plexity, when  out  of  invisible  intricacy  there  arises  a 


178  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

visible  manifoldness.  It  is  the  time  to  which  the 
Psalmist  reverently  refers  (Ps.  cxxxix,  15-16): — 
"  Thine  eyes  did  see  my  substance,  yet  being  imper- 
fect; and  in  thy  book  all  my  members  were  written, 
which  in  continuance  were  fashioned,  when  as  yet 
there  was  none  of  them." 

From  a  general  biological  point  of  view  three  ideas 
stand  out  clearly,  (a)  One  of  the  evolutionists  before 
Darwin  was  Robert  Chambers,  anonymous  author  of 
The  Vestiges  of  Creation,  and,  along  with  his  brother, 
founder  of  the  well-known  publishing  house  of  Cham- 
bers. Now  Robert  Chambers  had  many  shrewd  ideas, 
and  one  was  that  the  lengthening  out  of  the  ante- 
natal period  in  mammals  had  to  do  with  the  evolution 
of  fine  brains,  as  in  horse  and  elephant.  It  afforded 
in  man's  case  nine  months  during  which  his  extraor- 
dinarily complex  nervous  organisation  (with  its  9,200 
millions  of  nerve  cells  in  the  cerebral  cortex  alone) 
could  develop  more  or  less  sheltered  from  the  great 
booming,  buzzing  confusion  of  the  world,  from  the 
torrent  of  impressions  that  keeps  us  awake  and  con- 
scious. We  must  remember  that  it  is  during  the  ante- 
natal life  that  we  get  all  our  equipment  of  nerve-cells, 
and  though  there  are  illustrious  examples  of  children 
born  at  seven  months  or  so  who  grew  up  to  a  brilliant 
career  (e.g.  the  philosopher  Hobbes),  perhaps  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  for  the  average  the  child  who  bides 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     179 

its  time  is  best.    One-half  of  the  untimely  children  die 
in  a  few  hours,  days,  or  months. 

(b)  The  second  thing  is  that  if  we  are  to  keep 
our  ideas  clear,  we  must  realise  that  '  nurture '  is 
playing  upon  the  developing  human  organism  for  all 
these  months  before  birth,  and  that  it  is  not  always 
easy  to  be  sure  whether  a  peculiarity  seen  in  the  newly 
born  is  a  modification  induced  by  some  peculiarity  in 
the  maternal  nurture,  or  is  an  inborn  variation  arising 
from  some  new  arrangements  before  or  during  the  fer- 
tilisation of  the  egg-cell.    In  the  first  case  it  is  not 
likely  to  pass  on  to  the  grandchildren;  in  the  second 
case  it  has  every  chance  of  so  doing.    The  deteriora- 
tive effects  of  ante-natal  alcohol  absorption  are  well 
known;  so  also  of  ante-natal  infection  with  microbic 
disease,  such  as  syphilis. 

(c)  The  third  thing  is  that  the  relation  between 
the  unborn  child  and  its  mother  is  extraordinarily 
subtle.     No  one  should  dogmatise  concerning  "the 
mysterious  wireless  telegraphy  of  ante-natal  life  ",  to 
use  Dr.  J.  W.  Ballantyne's  apt  phrase.    On  the  whole, 
the  child  gets  the  best  of  it,  there  being,  for  instance, 
very  effective  arrangements  for  safeguarding  it  from 
many  of  the  disturbances  that  may  upset  the  mother. 
But  there  is  good  reason  for  believing  that  the  mother 
is  by  no  means  without  her  physiological  reward. 

According  to  a  modern  view,  well  represented  by 


180  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

Professor  Bar  of  Paris  (Lemons  de  pathologic  obstt- 
tricale,  1907),  the  intricate  placental  union  between  the 
unborn  child  and  the  mother  secures  a  harmonious 
partnership — a  literal  '  symbiosis ',  a  term  used  in 
biology  for  an  intimate  internal  mutually  beneficial 
partnership,  like  that  between  Radiolarians  and  their 
companion  Algae,  or  between  certain  Fungi  and  Algae 
to  form  Lichens.  The  point  is  that  the  child  is  not 
so  much  a  parasite  on  its  mother,  as  a  paying  guest. 
In  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  state  of  pregnancy 
is  a  state  of  health,  but  it  is  health  under  a  great 
strain,  and  the  mutually  beneficial  symbiosis  may 
readily  sink  into  a  parasitism  prejudicial  to  the 
mother's  vigour.  T<5  quote  a  great  authority,  Dr.  J. 
W.  Ballantyne  of  Edinburgh,  who  accepts  the  idea  of 
symbiosis  with  some  provisos,  "  mother  and  unborn 
infant  are  not  antagonistic  in  this  great  matter  of  re- 
production, but  are  working  together  for  the  benefit  of 
both,  the  mother  putting  forth  energy  and  giving 
nourishment,  but  the  child  so  acting  upon  her  as  to 
enable  her  to  do  so  without  exhaustion  or  loss " 
(Brit.  Med.  Journ.,  Feb.  14,  1914,  p.  349).  There 
is  evidence  that  the  child  may  help  the  mother  to 
make  the  most  of  her  food  and  may  act  as  a  bracing 
tonic.  It  is  very  interesting  to  find  Herbert  Spencer, 
a  bachelor  philosopher,  remarking  that  "  parenthood 
produces  a  mental  exaltation  not  otherwise  produci- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     181 

ble  ";  there  is  now  definite  physiological  evidence  that 
the  unborn  child  may  activate  the  tissues  and  organs 
of  its  mother  to  greater  vitality.  The  probability  is 
that  the  future  will  see  a  facilitating  of  the  patience  of 
maternity,  a  removal  of  dangers  and  a  reduction  of 
irksomeness — an  amelioration  which  may  lessen  the 
evasion  of  motherhood  on  the  part  of  types  of  fine 
physical  and  intellectual  quality. 

§  3.   Infancy  and  Its  Fragility. 

The  second  chapter  is  that  of  infancy — helpless, 
fragile,  in  certain  aspects  adorable,  infancy.  Three 
biological  notes  are  very  plain,  (a)  The  prolonged 
infancy  characteristic  of  mankind  has  almost  certainly 
been  a  factor  in  the  evolution  of  human  gentleness 
and  sympathy.  Opinions  may  differ  as  to  the  impor- 
tance of  the  arboreal  apprenticeship  served  by  man's 
pre-human  ancestry,  which  meant  a  reduction  of  the 
offspring  to  one  at  a  time  (see  Wood  Jones,  Arboreal 
Man,  1916),  and  the  habit  on  the  part  of  both  parents 
of  carrying  the  baby  about  among  the  branches — a 
prolonged  physical  attachment  leading  presumably  to 
something  better;  but  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the 
validity  of  the  general  thesis  of  Fiske  and  others  that 
the  prolonged  infancy  characteristic  of  the  human  race 
had  been  an  important  factor  in  the  Ascent  of  Man. 
It  made  for  tenderness,  kindness,  family  affection. 


1 82  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

(b)  Man  is  the  most  illustrious  example  of  the 
1  big-brain '  type  of  organism,  with  relatively  few  in- 
stincts but  great  educability,  and  his  prolonged  infancy 
must  be  recognised,  like  the  playing  period,  as  a  time 
in  which  the  young  creature  learns  to  find  its  way 
about,  supplementing  or  replacing  instincts  by  intelli- 
gent control. 

(c)  The  third  note  is  the  sadly  familiar  one  of  high 
infantile  mortality.    For  infancy  is  marked  by  fragil- 
ity and  there  is  much  wastage.    In  spite  of  remarkable 
improvements  along  many  lines,  e.g.  maternal  instruc- 
tion, better  housing,  milk  inspection,  segregation  of 
infectious  cases,  and  so  on,  the  British  nation's  death- 
rate  for  infants  under  twelve  months  stood  a  few 
years  ago  at  10  per  1,000,  and  in  overcrowded  areas 
this  may  rise  to  nearly  160.    This  is  not  only  a  re- 
proach to  humanity,  but  a  national  wastage  on  a 
scandalous  scale. 

Social  sentiment  being  what  it  is,  we  are  bound  to 
seek  to  save  all  we  can,  and  in  many  countries  a 
praiseworthy  amount  of  systematised  and  voluntary 
service  is  devoted  to  lessening  infantile  mortality.  Per- 
haps some  of  this  tends  to  allow  ignoble  parents  to 
evade  the  extreme  consequences  of  their  neglect  of  the 
children,  but  as  far  as  the  children  are  concerned  it  is 
for  the  most  part  to  the  good.  It  cannot  be  main- 
tained without  grotesqueness  that  the  efforts  to  reduce 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     183 

infantile  mortality  should  be  abandoned  because  they 
imply  an  interference  with  natural  selection.  This 
position  is  grotesque  not  only  because  Man  has  been 
interfering  with  natural  selection  ever  since  civilisation 
began,  not  only  because  natural  selection  cannot  be 
trusted  to  work  in  the  right  direction  when  the  condi- 
tions of  its  operation  are  of  Man's  making,  but  mainly 
because  a  great  part  of  the  mortality  is  not  discrimi- 
nating at  all  and  is  quite  avoidable.  In  a  huge  num- 
ber of  cases  it  is  merely  thinning,  not  sifting,  that  goes 
on.  Moreover,  while  there  is  a  right  place  for  preach- 
ing repentance  and  *  less  coddling ',  it  is  not  in  regard 
to  infants.  And  finally  the  advocates  of  the  policy  of 
1  Thorough '  would  do  well  to  remember,  for  instance, 
how  much  the  modern  world  owes  to  one  who  is  said 
to  have  been  about  the  miserablest  seven-months  in- 
fant ever  seen — Isaac  Newton  to  wit. 

§  4.    The  Individual's  Recapitulation  of 
Racial  Evolution. 

Many  forms  of  life  show  in  the  early  stages  of  their 
life-history,  and  especially  in  the  building-up  of  their 
organs,  a  tendency  to  repeat  in  condensed  form  what 
we  believe  to  have  been  great  steps  in  the  evolution 
of  the  race  to  which  they  belong.  This  is  called  re- 
capitulation. As  Prof.  Milnes  Marshall  put  it,  the 
creature  may  be  said  to  climb  up  its  own  genealogical 


1 84  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

tree.  The  individual  development  tends  to  be  a  con- 
densed recapitulation  of  the  racial  evolution.  This  is 
an  important  and  luminous  idea,  but  it  requires  to  be 
used  very  carefully. 

In  the  first  chapter  in  man's  life-cycle,  there  is  cer- 
tainly much  that  may  be  described  as  recapitulation 
of  racial  evolution,  such  as  the  almost  evanescent  de- 
velopment of  the  old-fashioned  dorsal  axis,  the  noto- 
chord,  which  is  speedily  replaced  by  its  substitute  the 
backbone.  But  it  is  obvious  that  the  child  we  know 
does  not  work  through  the  history  of  human  acquisi- 
tions, e.g.  in  learning  to  speak.  That  is  happily  un- 
necessary, for  while  many  strides  in  the  evolution  of 
aptitudes  are  enregistered  internally  in  the  hereditary 
constitution,  many  others  are  enregistered  externally 
in  man's  permanent  products.  Part  of  the  business  of 
education  is  to  shorten  the  recapitulation  such  as  it  is 
by  supplying  children  with  a  thought-out  succession 
of  appropriate  liberating  stimuli  which  enable  the 
inborn  hereditary  organisation  to  make  in  a  few  years 
advances  which  meant  for  the  race  the  patience  of 
ages.  A  liberating  stimulus  means  in  the  domain  of 
things  a  spark  to  a  barrel  of  gunpowder,  which  leads 
to  self-destruction,  the  releasing  of  a  spring  which  sets 
the  gramophone  unwinding.  Among  living  creatures 
it  means  the  entrance  of  the  sperm-cell  that  sets  the 
egg  cell  developing,  the  rise  of  temperature  and  the  in- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     185 

soaking  of  moisture  that  prompt  a  seed  to  germinate, 
the  touch  of  a  twig  that  sets  a  tendril  twining,  the 
diffusion  of  an  internal  secretion  that  calls  a  dormant 
structure  into  activity.  For  children  a  liberating 
stimulus  means  all  sorts  of  things,  a  crust  for  the  cut- 
ting teeth,  paper  and  chalks  for  the  child-artist,  a  doll 
for  the  child-mother,  a  garden-plot  for  one,  a  mechano 
for  another,  a  problem  for  Jack  and  a  poem  for  Jill, 
and  so  on  without  end.  Perhaps  the  biologist  may  be 
permitted  to  say  that  the  liberating  stimuli  supplied 
in  school  should  avoid  three  extremes.  They  should 
not  be  too  grown-up,  for  that  means  unnatural  coer- 
cion. They  should  not  be  too  sophisticated  and  mod- 
ern, for  then  they  lose  reality,  missing  the  primal  in- 
terests. They  should  not  be  too  primitive,  for  we 
cannot  go  back  to  the  simple  life;  we  live  in  condi- 
tions to  which  our  engrained  predispositions  and  our 
instincts  are  far  from  being  altogether  well  fitted. 

The  zoological  evidence  of  recapitulation  refers 
chiefly  to  embryonic  development — to  the  making  of 
organs,  and  it  seems  incontestable  that  the  young 
creature  often  proceeds  from  stage  to  stage  in  a 
strange  circuitous  fashion,  which  we  cannot  explain 
except  on  the  theory  that  because  of  its  enregistered 
inheritance,  due  to  many  steps  taken  in  many  suc- 
cessive ages,  it  has  to  follow  the  trail  blazed  out  by 
distant  ancestors.  Though  it  is  nonsense  to  speak 


1 86  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

of  a  fish-like  stage  in  the  development  of  man,  even 
man  has  gill-clefts  like  a  dogfish.  None  of  them  is 
of  any  use  for  breathing,  and  only  one  is  of  any  use 
at  all,  the  one  that  becomes  what  is  called  the 
Eustachian  tube.  Yet  they  are  telltale  recapitulations 
of  a  very  distant  aquatic  ancestry.  The  recapitulation 
can  only  be  general,  for  great  steps  that  may  have 
taken  the  race  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  are 
condensed  in  the  individual  into  a  few  days.  More- 
over, evolution  has  not  occurred  (as  far  as  we  under- 
stand) by  adding  on  additional  pieces  as  wings  might 
be  added  to  a  house;  there  is  unification  at  the  begin- 
ning of  each  new  life.  And  again  it  must  be  recog- 
nised that  each  kind  of  creature  is  specific,  itself  and 
no  other.  A  frog  has  at  one  stage  in  its  tadpole  life 
a  two-chambered  fish-like  heart,  a  fish-like  type  of 
circulation,  and  old-fashioned  gills  like  the  external 
gills  of  some  ancient  fishes,  but  it  is  an  amphibian  all 
the  same  from  beginning  to  end.  The  recapitulation 
doctrine  requires  careful  handling. 

But  we  are  not  here  interested  in  embryos,  is  there 
recapitulation  in  juvenile  life?  The  answer  must  be 
cautious.  Our  inheritance  is  made  up  of  ancestral 
contributions,  including  a  few  very  ancient  instinctive 
predispositions — of  self-preservation,  nutrition,  sex, 
and  the  herd-instinct — but  the  non-human  elements 
in  these  instincts  have  been  gradually  sifted  out.  And 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     187 

the  instinctive  under-current  has  to  operate  in  most 
cases  through  an  upper  current  of  consciously  con- 
trolled life.  Yet,  those  who  give  an  attentive  ear  may 
still  catch  reverberating  in  the  recesses  of  their  being 
the  echoes  of  a  very  distant  past. 

§  5.   Childhood:  Its  Playing  and  Schooling. 

What  comes  out  of  the  egg  of  a  snake  is  a  miniature 
snake,  which  usually  goes  about  its  business  forth- 
with. But  in  many  mammals  there  is,  after  the  chap- 
ter spent  in  darkness  and  the  period  of  infantile  de- 
pendence on  the  mother,  a  long  childhood.  It  is 
familiar  in  kittens,  lambs,  kids,  foals,  and  so  on. 
What  is  the  biological  significance  of  childhood?  It 
is  the  time  of  self-expression,  of  character- forming, 
of  finding  oneself,  of  substituting  experiment  for  in- 
stinctive prompting,  and  not  least  of  play.  We  shall 
take  the  last  first. 

To  Groos  in  particular  we  owe  the  idea  that  animals 
continue  young  in  order  that  they  may  play,  for  play 
is  of  fundamental  importance  in  life.  There  are  many 
play-instincts  among  higher  animals — sham  fights  and 
sham  hunts,  races  and  follow-my-leader,  gambols  and 
'daring  do';  and  playing  is  justified  not  only  as  a 
safety-valve  for  overflowing  energy  and  spirits,  and  as 
the  motor  expression  of  emotions,  but  also  as  affording 
elbowroom  for  idiosyncrasies  and  originalities  before 


1 88  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

criticism  is  too  stringent,  and  most  of  all  as  a  not  too 
responsible  'prentice  time  for  educating  aptitudes 
which  are  essential  in  after-life,  replacing  or  modifying 
instinctive  promptings  by  the  registered  results  of 
experiment.  Man's  brain  has  relatively  few  instincts, 
but  it  is  eminently  educable;  and  in  play  there  is  a 
chance  for  learning  and  testing,  roving  and  adventur- 
ing before  consequences  are  too  serious.  Play  is  the 
young  form  of  work;  and  it  gives  elbowroom  for  self- 
expression.  Instead  of  being  a  trivial  and  dispensable 
activity,  play  is  of  profound  biological  and  psycho- 
logical importance.  In  general  it  may  be  said  that 
those  who  play  best  will  afterwards  work  best,  live 
best,  and  love  best. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  biological  and  psy- 
chological utility  of  play  is  to  remain  in  the  back- 
ground of  our  minds,  for  the  essence  of  play  is  that 
it  has  no  conscious  end  beyond  itself.  It  is  next  door 
to  art.  But  it  is  very  important  that  the  joy  of 
pleasurable  activity  should  possess  young  minds,  and 
become  a  need,  so  that  in  grown-up  life  a  man  shall 
insist  that  his  days  shall  be  a  pleasure  to  him. 

But  childhood  is  the  time  of  schooling  as  well  as  of 
playing,  and  we  venture  to  contribute  to  the  discussion 
of  this  pre-eminently  interesting  subject  a  few  consid- 
erations from  the  biologist's  point  of  view.  We  do 
this  in  full  awareness  that  education  is  one  of  those 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     189 

problems  the  solution  of  which  every  man  with  ideas 
believes  himself  to  possess. 

(i)  A  fundamental  fact — so  obvious  that  it  tends  to 
be  ignored — is  that  the  child  is  a  developing  creature. 
It  is  continuing  what  went  on  in  the  womb  and  at 
the  mother's  breast;  it  is  not  merely  growing,  it  is 
developing.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  becoming  more  com- 
plex (e.g.  in  the  inter-relations  of  its  nerve-cells,  whose 
numbers  however  do  not  increase  after  birth) ;  and  it 
is  becoming  more  of  a  controlled  unity.  In  other 
words,  besides  growing,  it  is  exhibiting  self-differen- 
tiation and  self-integration.  Nojy,  a  developing  or- 
ganism requires,  of  course,  food  and  air,  but  it  also 
requires  a  succession  of  liberating  stimuli.  So  it  is 
pre-eminently  with  the  human  child,  pre-eminently 
because  so  many  steps  in  Man's  evolution  are  regis- 
tered outside  himself  in  the  social  heritage.  It  is  in 
this  external  social  heritage  that  we  must  look  for 
many  of  the  keys  wherewith  to  open  doors  through 
which  the  child's  mind  may  go  out  and  in.  Another  set 
of  liberating  stimuli  is  to  be  found  in  art,  and  another 
set  in  Nature.  What  the  child  needs  is  not  so  much 
meals  of  information,  though  these  are  well  enough 
in  their  way,  but  thrills  of  delight,  discoveries  that 
open  up  new  worlds,  adventures  that  reveal  new 
powers.  For  really  fine  gains  like  '  a  love  of  the  coun- 
try ',  the  indirect  aesthetic  approach  is  surest. 


190  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

(2)  One  of  the  profound  facts  of  biology,  not  as 
yet  fully  understood,  is  the  formative  role  of  function. 
Development,  especially  after  the  early  stages,  is  no 
passive  unfolding,  it  is  an  active  process.    The  young 
creature  traffics  with  circumstance  and  in  this  way 
comes  to  its  own.    It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  embryo 
chick  has  tiny  lungs  formed  long  before  the  twenty- 
first  day  on  which  the  creature  gets  its  first  mouthful 
of  air;  this  internal  capitalisation  or  organisation  of 
past  achievements  is  the  central  mystery  of  heredity; 
but  the  subsequent  open-air  development  of  the  lungs 
of  the  chicken  depends  on  its  breathing.     It  seems, 
moreover,  that  a  certain  amount  of  active  functioning 
is  necessary  to  keep  complicated  structure  up  to  the 
level  previously  attained.    The  unused  hill-road,  the 
unused  trench,  disappears,  and  a  structure  shut  off 
from  the  bustle  of  metabolism  is  apt  to  go  back  on 
itself,  to  unweave  its  web,  to  show  de-differentiation. 
On  such  facts  rests  our  second  biological  principle  of 
education,  that  the  best  learning  is  that  in  which  the 
pupil  has  an  active  share — and  is  not  merely  a  passive 
recipient. 

Vivendo  discimus. — By  living  we  learn  to  use  body 
and  mind,  sense  and  soul  aright. 

(3)  Another  biological  idea  of  obvious  relevancy  in 
regard  to  education  is  the  unity  of  the  organism.    We 
are  mind-bodies  or  body-minds,  and  education  fails  of 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     191 

its  mark  if  it  is  not  the  development  of  the  healthy 
mind  in  the  healthy  body.  To  the  physiologist  it  is 
so  plain  that  the  child  is  a  motor  organism,  surging 
to  move,  to  do  things,  to  translate  thought  into  action, 
to  relieve  emotion  by  motion,  that  he  wonders  how  he 
survived  the  long  school-hour,  the  frequent  repression 
of  even  vocal  cord  movement,  the  straining  of  atten- 
tion to  or  beyond  the  limit  of  '  fatigue-stupefaction '. 
But  it  is  not  only  the  motor  capacities  that  must  be 
championed  as  having  rights  alongside  of  the  intellec- 
tual; there  is  the  training  of  the  senses  in  precision 
and  alertness — often  an  enjoyable  as  well  as  a  valuable 
discipline;  there  is  the  training  of  the  emotions — from 
the  thrills  of  the  simple  beauty-feast  of  shells  and 
flowers,  or  of  the  simple  song,  up  to  the  appreciation 
of  picture  and  music,  from  a  simple  admiration  of  the 
hero  or  heroine  of  the  great  stories  to  an  ennoblement 
of  the  whole  being  with  courage  or  pity  when  the 
imagination  is  fired  by  reading  or  hearing  in  fit  lan- 
guage of  the  historical  realisation  of  some  great  ideal; 
there  is  the  discipline  of  enduring  harness;  and  there 
is  the  supremely  educative  moment — which  some  Boy 
Scouts  find — when  knowledge  and  imagination,  sense 
and  sympathy  are  combined  in  the  accomplishment  of 
something  that  required  to  be  done.  We  suppose  that 
this  has  been  said  many  thousands  of  times,  but  it 
remains  in  great  part  an  unrealised  ideal.  Moreover, 


192  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

there  is  rarely  any  recognition  of  the  fact  that,  the 
organism  being  a  unity  (we  do  not  thoroughly  under- 
stand how),  the  child's  finding  of  himself  or  herself 
along  any  one  line — even  if  it  be  only  swimming,  or 
planing,  or  sewing,  or  drawing,  or  cooking,  or  golfing — 
with  reasonable  efficiency  reacts  through  the  whole 
being  with  encouragement  and  stimulus.  One  has 
heard  an  adolescent  confess:  "  Yes,  I  should  like  to 
go  back  to  the  school  for  a  day,  just  to  let  the  teacher 
know  what  I  can  do." 

A  profoundly  important  fact  about  childhood  is  that 
living  creatures  are  much  more  in  the  grip  of  '  nur- 
ture '  when  they  are  young  than  later  on.  Children 
are  impressionable  and  modifiable  extraordinarily — 
often  by  influences  which  neither  we  nor  they  know 
much  about.  "  There  was  a  child  went  forth  every 
day  and  what  that  child  saw  became  part  of  him  for 
a  day  or  for  a  year  or  for  stretching  cycles  of  years.'' 

Some  of  these  modifications  require  careful  watch- 
ing. It  is  our  duty  to  notice  recent  work  which  shows 
that  in  very  young  children  there  are  often  dim  expe- 
riences more  or  less  connected  with  sex,  and  that 
care  should  be  taken  to  avoid  exaggerating  these  by 
careless  caressing  and  exuberant  fondling,  or  by 
thoughtless  ways  of  soothing,  or  by  the  common  as- 
sumption that  what  a  child  does  not  understand  has 
no  effect  on  it.  In  normal  cases,  happily,  the  very 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     193 

early  deviations  pass  into  oblivion,  and  until  puberty 
approaches  there  is  a  joyous  period  of  latent  sex. 

During  this  time  the  child  continues  consciously 
what  the  infant  began  unconsciously — garnering  its 
mother's  love.  During  very  early  childhood  the 
parents  are  in  the  place  of  God  to  their  children,  and 
to  many,  happily,  the  mother  always  remains  in  a 
peculiar  way  sacred. 

§  6.   Adolescence:  Its  Adventures  and  Dangers. 

Adolescence  is  a  long  stretch  on  the  ascending  curve 
of  development,  when  childish  things  are  put  away, 
when  juvenile  characteristics  are  for  the  most  part 
slipped  off  as  a  crab  slips  off  its  shard,  when  adult 
characters  are  gradually  put  on,  when  the  life  begins 
to  take  definite  shape,  when  the  limit  of  growth  comes 
within  sight,  and  when  sex-impulses,  at  first  mere  pass- 
ing whispers,  compel  a  hearing  to  their  mingled  voices. 
Male  adolescence  in  North  Temperate  countries 
usually  lies  between  fifteen  and  twenty,  female 
adolescence  between  fourteen  and  nineteen. 

From  our  biological  standpoint,  we  would  notice 
four  things  about  adolescence,  (i)  There  is  a  re- 
acceleration  of  growth  toward  adolescence,  and  this 
growing  preoccupies  the  youth — organically,  not  con- 
sciously— and  is  apt  to  induce  slackness  and  limpness. 


i94          THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

It  is  surely  a  time  for  plenty  of  rest  and  plenty  of 
play. 

(2)  The  adolescent  creature  is  rearranging  itself. 
It  becomes  more  complex  from  its  teeth  to  its  nerve- 
paths;  it  likewise  becomes  more  subtly  knit  together. 
There  are  new  complexities  and  new  controls,  new 
ambitions,  new  ideas.    The  readjustments  are  accom- 
panied by  the  pains  and  risks  associated  with  all 
progress,  by  '  growing  pains '  and  instabilities,  with 
promise  as  well  as  portent,  with  portent  as  well  as 
promise.    All  this  must  be  allowed  for. 

(3)  It  is  in  adolescence  that  the  new  departures  and 
original  acquisitions  of  youth  have  to  run  the  gauntlet 
of  criticism  and  selection,  which  is  often  very  cruel. 
It  is  well  when  natural  selection  sifts  out  the  unstable, 
and  when  social  selection  sifts  out  the  lazy,  but  there 
is  a  lamentable  amount  of  rough-handed  nipping  of 
fine  buds. 

(4)  The  sex  becomes  mature — sometimes  setting 
in  suddenly  and  violently  like  a  storm,  sometimes 
gradually  and  gently  like  the  coming  of  spring.    The 
tissues  of  internal  secretion  associated  with  the  repro- 
ductive organs  begin  in  a  new  way  to  send  their  mys- 
terious messengers  or  hormones   through  the  body, 
subtly  affecting  the  brain  and  the  blood,  impression- 
ability and  controlling  power.    Healthy  work  and  play 
and  wide  interests  furnish  some  safeguard,  but  one 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     195 

must  not  forget  the  mental  side  which  is  as  supreme 
as  hormones  are  fundamental.  Happiest  are  those 
who  have  garrisoned  their  hearts  with  nobility,  for  out 
of  the  heart  are  the  issues  of  life. 

Towards  the  close  of  adolescence  the  voices  of  sex 
call  more  clamantly,  varying  in  tone  with  the  indi- 
vidual temperament.  There  is  a  clash  between  the 
imperious  demands  of  the  sex-instinct  and  the  oppos- 
ing forces — ethical,  religious,  and  practical — which  re- 
fuse satisfaction.  There  are  three  common  results* 
or,  often,  there  is  a  mingling  of  three,  (i)  There  may 
be  indulgence  which  is  apt  to  mean  damaged  health 
— mental  as  well  as  bodily.  It  often  has  punishment 
out  of  proportion  to  the  offence.  (2)  There  may  be 
a  morbid  repression,  which  takes  the  form  of  finding 
fictitious  substitutes  for  the  activities  which  should 
naturally  accompany  or  follow  normal  sex-arousal. 
This  '  substitute  gratification  '  is  apt  to  lead  to  mental 
troubles  called  '  anxiety-neuroses  '.  (3)  But  thirdly, 
the  outcome  may  be  a  strengthened  control,  an  en- 
riched life,  and  a  love  which  when  it  finds  its  mate 
will  not  die. 

Things  often  go  badly  wrong  in  adolescence,  as 
every  one  knows,  and  tragedy  results,  often  without 
there  being  any  terrible  wickedness  when  all  is  said 
and  done.  The  frequent  misery  is  leading  many  to 
ask  for  more  definite  sex-instruction  in  adoles- 


196  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

cence  at  least.  As  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  says,  "  The  car- 
dinal thing  in  life  sneaks  in  to  us  darkly  and  shame- 
fully like  a  thief  in  the  night."  We  should  let  in 
more  daylight,  more  sunlight.  Many  will  agree  with 
Samuel  Butler  that  muddle  is  largely  our  enemy,  and 
that  there  has  been  far  too  much  reserve.  "  Get  at," 
he  said,  "  the  best  opinion  of  our  best  medical  men, 
and  let  us  have  it  out."  There  should  be  added,  how- 
ever, the  best  opinion  of  our  best  biologists,  psycholo- 
gists, and  moralists. 

One  knows  only  a  small  number  of  cases,  and  it  is 
dangerous  to  generalise,  but  there  is  perhaps  a  tend- 
ency to  exaggerate — especially  as  regards  girls — the 
part  that  sex-calls  play  in  the  conscious  life  of  adoles- 
cence. Perhaps,  furthermore,  there  is  a  tendency  to 
make  a  scapegoat  of  sex,  and  to  interpret  as  dishar- 
monies what  are  really  due  to  a  poverty  of  nature,  a 
dearth  of  sound  human  interests,  and  an  absence  of 
real  responsibilities. 

§  7.   Falling  in  Love — or,  rather,  Rising. 

The  natural  climax  of  adolescence  is  a  genuine  fall- 
ing in  love — not  a  passing  fancy,  nor  a  sudden  impulse 
of  the  flesh — but  a  reaching  out  of  the  whole  being, — 
impulsively  rather  than  deliberately,  intuitively  rather 
than  rationally.  It  normally  includes  (i)  an  instinc- 
tive organic  attraction,  (2)  an  aesthetic  attraction  to 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     197 

qualities  of  voice,  eyes,  gesture,  manner,  and  dress, 
and  (3)  a  sentimental  psychical  attraction  of  person- 
ality for  personality.  Love  is  an  affair  of  body,  sense, 
and  mind.  Those  who  have  given  special  attention  to 
the  subject  declare  that  the  least  successful  fallings  in 
love  are  those  which  are  the  outcome  of  a  too  spe- 
cialised attraction,  too  purely  physical,  too  purely 
aesthetic,  too  purely  intellectual.  The  lasting  basis  is 
manifold,  not  simple.  It  has  been  well  said  that 
"  There  is  gold  and  clay,  sunlight  and  savagery  in 
every  love-story  ".  But  if  the  root  of  the  matter  be 
there — and  the  pro  founder  tendernesses  in  which  self 
is  half  forgotten,  then  even  if  the  turtle-doving  seems 
silly  let  us  not  greet  it  with  a  superior  smile,  and  even 
if  the  captivation  seems  mad  let  us  not  ban  it.  As 
Meredith  says,  "  Love  is  a  madness,  but  with  heaven's 
wisdom  in  it — a  spark.  Even  when  it  is  driving  us  on 
the  breakers,  call  it  love;  and  be  not  unworthy  of  it, 
hold  to  it." 

§  8.   Married  Life  and  Parental  Affection. 

The  attainment  of  mature  strength  and  a  foothold  in 
life  is  normally  followed  by  marriage.  To  postpone 
this  till  prosperity  has  been  gained  and  youth  lost  is 
a  mistaken  policy. 

"  How  to  be  happy  though  married  "  is  a  favourite 
subject  of  good-humoured  jest,  but  it  is  no  laughing 


198  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

matter,  (i)  One  of  the  authorities  on  the  subject — 
Mr.  Heape — points  out  that  man  and  woman  are  so 
different  that  they  must  eventually  become  opposed  in 
what  he  calls  sex-antagonism.  We  adhere  to  the 
thesis  of  The  Evolution  of  Sex  (Geddes  and  Thomson, 
1889),  that  there  is  a  deep  and  pervasive  constitutional 
difference  between  the  sexes,  but  there  is  nothing  in 
this  contrast  to  necessitate  eventual  antagonism.  It 
may  as  reasonably  be  regarded  as  an  organic  condition 
of  attaining  in  married  life  to  increased  appreciation 
and  happiness.  The  three  sails  of  a  happy  marriage  , 
(voyage  are  organic  fondness,  intellectual  sympathy,, 
(  and  some  capacity  for  actual  working-together.  Many 
'  voyages  are  made  with  one  sail  and  many  with  two, 
but  the  most  prosperous  voyages  are  made  with  three. 
A  normal  affectionate  married  life,  with  some  funda- 
mental agreements,  which  need  not  be  political,  and 
with  some  reasonable  working-together  (and  mutual 
appreciation  of  that,  it  must  be  added),  does  not  as 
a  matter  of  fact  lead  to  diametrical  opposition  of  the 
partners,  but  very  generally  to  a  loving  comradeship 
—one  of  the  fine  things  of  life.  Marriage  without 
some  working  or  playing  together  courts  disaster,  and 
is  terribly  patriarchal  in  outlook.  Marriages  without 
fondness  often  makes  shipwreck,  for  love  is  a  unity 
with  bodily  and  spiritual  expressions  inextricably  in- 
tertwined. Marriage  with  too  much  physical  fondness 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     199 

may  also  make  shipwreck.  Bernard  Shaw  states  an 
ugly  truth  for  men  when  he  says  "  marriage  is  popular 
because  it  combines  the  maximum  of  temptation  with 
the  maximum  of  opportunity  ". 

The  normal  love  of  civilised  men  and  women  hap- 
pily married  is  like  a  tree  with  deep  roots,  going  far 
down  into  animal  nature — roots  that  may  be  safely 
pruned,  but  never  wholly  cut — but  with  lofty 
branches  that  rise  into  the  sunlight  and  bear  always 
the  homely  and  sometimes  the  rare  fruits  of  the  spirit. 
It  is  a  pity  when  love  does  not  rise  off  the  ground. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  we  may  look  to  hygiene  and 
education  and  the  like,  and  to  social  changes  as  well, 
for  the  removal  of  extrinsic  hindrances — in  housing, 
for  instance — to  married  happiness;  but  some  of  our 
grandfathers  and  grandmothers  were  probably  hap- 
pier and  better  in  their  but  and  ben  than  many  who 
live  in  mansions.  We  greatly  err  if  we  think  change 
of  circumstances  will  necessarily  save  our  souls.  But 
we  must  try  to  secure  the  evolutionary  circumstances 
all  the  same. 

The  maternal  instinct  is  of  supreme  survival-value, 
and  it  has  influenced  the  rest  of  the  nature  in  the  direc- 
tion of  other-regarding  sympathies.  In  the  family  life 
in  which  it  has  expressed  itself  there  has  been  estab- 
lished a  garden  for  the  individual  cultivation  of  these 
virtues.  The  kindly  instinct  which  mothering  ex- 


200  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

presses,  which  is  very  strong  in  many  who  are  not 
mothers,  is  not  a  strictly  sex-linked  character,  it  passes 
in  inheritance  to  sons  as  well  as  to  daughters,  though 
the  seeds  often  find  the  masculine  soil  rather  stony 
ground.  There  is  no  allusion  here  to  the  occurrence 
of  sex-intergrades,  which  cannot  be  regarded  as  quite 
normal;  as  Sancho  Panza  the  wise  said,  we  like  men 
to  be  men  and  women  to  be  women,  equally  able  in 
their  own  ways,  which,  happily,  are  not  quite  the  same 
ways.  But  experimental  work  in  regard  to  lower  crea- 
tures shows  that  an  excellence  primarily  gained  by  one 
sex  may  become  in  a  measure  the  property  of  the  other 
also,  unless  it  happens  to  be  sex-linked,  or  is  handi- 
capped in  its  expression  by  the  general  constitution 
of  the  opposite  sex. 

Fathers  have  doubtless  also  made  their  contribution 
to  the  common  human  treasure  of  good-will.  But  if 
women  have  perhaps  contributed  most  along  the  line 
of  maternal  virtues,  men  have  probably  contributed 
most  along  the  line  of  the  qualities  of  lovers.  And 
the  counterpart  of  men's  excellencies  as  lovers  may 
become  part  of  the  inheritance  of  daughters  as  well 
as  of  sons.  No  one  knows  enough  to  gauge  the  role  that 
the  qualities  of  the  lover  have  played  in  the  evolution 
of  the  human  mind,  but  let  us  get  away  from  thinking 
of  it  in  an  easy-going  or  little-minded  way.  Darwin 
showed  in  his  Descent  of  Man  how  much  might  be 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     201 

traceable  to  preferential  mating  and  its  sifting;  and  he 
did  not  exhaust  the  inquiry.  The  finding  and  winning 
of  a  mate  has  been  in  infra-human  evolution  an  age- 
long stimulus  against  slackness;  it  has  made  for  ad- 
venture, for  prowess,  for  alertness.  It  has  been  an 
organic  spur  for  millions  of  years;  can  we  suppose  it 
is  to  cease  to  be  potent  in  mankind,  because  for  the 
time  being  we  have  too  much  allowed  things  to  get 
into  the  saddle?  Permanent  monogamy  seems  an 
ideal — in  many  cases  a  happy  reality — worth  keeping 
as  intact  as  possible.  It  has  had  a  chequered  history, 
but  in  most  conditions  it  has  proved  itself  the  best 
arrangement  for  the  realisation  of  mutual  affection  on 
the  one  hand,  and  for  the  welfare  of  the  family  on  the 
other  hand.  Monogamy  commends  itself  ethically, 
and  likewise  socially — it  is  the  best  method  of  rearing 
the  next  generation. 

We  have  said  above  "as  intact  as  possible",  for 
we  recognise  the  need  for  some  changes;  it  may  be 
necessary  to  change  some  of  the  marriage  laws,  for 
instance.  To  many  it  seems  regrettable  that  in  some 
countries  a  marriage  cannot  be  dissolved  for  insanity, 
or  for  crime,  or  for  cruelty,  or  for  desertion,  or  for  adul- 
tery by  both  parties.  It  may  be  said  that  if  the  bodily 
tie  becomes  intolerable  separation  may  be  possible, 
though  divorce  is  not.  But  separation  is  a  luxury 
beyond  the  means  of  many.  In  his  recent  book  on 


202  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

what  he  calls  social  reconstruction  Mr.  Bertrand 
Russell  proposes  to  permit  divorce  by  mutual  consent. 
In  this  he  is  surely  arguing  from  his  own  fine  nature 
and  forgetting  the  frailties  of  the  average  man.  He 
says:  "  Lifelong  monogamy  is  best  when  it  is  success- 
ful, but  the  increasing  complexity  of  our  needs  makes 
it  increasingly  often  a  failure  for  which  divorce  is  the 
best  preventive."  "  Mutual  liberty,  which  is  now 
demanded,  is  making  the  old  form  of  marriage  impos- 
sible." Man  is  rather  imperfectly  monogamous,  per- 
haps, but  it  is  difficult  to  accept  this  philosopher's 
conclusion  that  monogamy  becomes  "  sooner  or  later 
retrospective,  a  tomb  of  dead  joys,  not  a  well-spring 
of  new  life  ".  A  truer  note  was  struck  by  the  French 
philosopher,  Comte:  "  For  two  beings  so  complex  and 
so  diverse  as  man  and  woman,  the  whole  of  life  is  not 
too  long  for  them  to  know  one  another  well  and  love 
one  another  worthily." 

§  9.    The  Difficult  Age. 

There  is  much  to  admire  in  the  bird's  life-cycle, 
where  sex  activity  is  definitely  seasonal  and  sharply 
punctuated.  One  of  the  peculiarities  and  dangers  of 
man's  case  is  the  practical  absence  of  seasonal  punc- 
tuation. 

It  is  rare  to  find  instances  of  wild  animals  outliving 
their  full  vigour  or  their  effective  reproductivity. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     203 

Metaphorically  speaking,  Nature  does  not  tolerate  the 
used-up.  Literally,  those  races  survive  whose  life- 
cycle  is  most  successively  punctuated  towards  survival, 
the  others  have  got  sifted  out. 

The  average  duration  of  human  life — about  forty — 
is  much  the  same  all  over  the  world  and  in  all  condi- 
tions, and  it  is  probable  that  the  cessation  of  women's 
reproductivity  about  that  time,  and  the  normal  waning 
of  sex-impulses  in  both  sexes  somewhat  later,  have 
reference  to  an  old-established  span  of  life.  It  is  not 
for  us  to  discuss  the  great  constitutional  changes — 
notably  in  the  regulative  system — associated  with  the 
normal  waning  of  sex  about  fifty  or  so;  but  two  things 
are  important  biologically,  the  one  is  the  danger  of 
artificially  fanning  the  embers  of  a  naturally  dying 
fire,  and  the  other  is  the  value  of  having  at  a  danger- 
ous age  a  many-sided — indeed  inexhaustible — interest 
in  life.  As  the  parable  tells  us,  it  is  dangerous  to 
leave  empty  the  room  from  which  the  unclean  spirit 
has  departed. 

§  10.    The  Problem  of  Growing  Old,  the  Art  of 
Remaining  Young. 

One  may  die  a  more  or  less  violent,  accidental  or 
extrinsic  death,  as  happens  apparently  to  most  wild 
animals;  one  may  be  poisoned  by  an  invasion  of 
microbes — and  when  they  come  from  our  neighbour's 


204  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

drains,  one  must  die  feeling  rather  ill-used;  one  may 
poison  oneself  with  over-eating,  over-drinking,  or  over- 
anxiety;  one  may  in  rare  cases  wear  oneself  out  with 
overwork  alone.  In  one  or  other  of  these  four  ways 
one  may  avoid  the  long  slope  of  senescence.  But 
growing  old  is  part  of  the  normal  cycle,  though  one 
cannot  believe  that  senility  is.  Prolonged  senility 
never  occurs  among  wild  animals,  and  rapid  senility  is 
rare;  even  senescence  is  not  very  common.  This  is  a 
parable. 

We  cannot  draw  any  hard  and  fast  line  between 
senescence  and  senility,  any  more  than  between  tired- 
ness and  neurasthenia,  but  in  senility  the  disintegra- 
tive  processes  have  gone  so  far  that  the  unity  of  the 
organism  has  been  lost.  Every  one  knows  the  mar- 
vellous picture  of  old  age  which  we  owe  to  the  author 
of  Ecclesiastes: — "  The  mind  and  senses  begin  to  be 
darkened,  the  winter  of  life  approaches  with  its  clouds 
and  storms;  the  arms — the  protectors  of  the  bodily 
house — tremble,  the  strong  legs  bow,  the  grinders 
cease  because  they  are  few,  the  apples  of  the  eyes 
are  darkened,  the  jaws  munch  with  only  a  dull  sound; 
the  old  man  is  nervously  weak  and  startled  even  by 
a  bird  chirping;  he  is  afraid  of  even  hillocks,  his  fall- 
ing hair  is  white  as  the  strewn  almond  blossoms,  he 
drags  himself  along  with  difficulty,  he  has  no  more 
appetite,  he  seeks  only  for  his  home  of  rest,  which  he 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     205 

finds  when  the  silver  cord  is  loosed  or  the  golden  bowl 
broken." 

Physiologically  regarded,  the  process  of  ageing  is 
manifold.  The  bones  become  lighter  and  less  resist- 
ant, some  of  them  break  easily;  the  muscles  become 
weaker  and  stiff er — hence  the  stoop;  the  nervous  sys- 
tem becomes  slower  and  less  forceful,  the  heart  less 
vigorous;  the  arteries  are  less  elastic;  the  parts  begin 
to  fail  to  answer  to  one  another's  call,  "  and  then, 
from  hour  to  hour,  we  rot  and  rot." 

Many  answers  have  been  given  to  the  question, 
What  compels  a  creature  to  grow  old?  It  is  said  that 
we  wear  out  part  of  the  body  such  as  the  nervous 
system  which  cannot  be  renewed,  such  as  the  hard- 
worked  heart,  liver,  and  kidneys.  But  why  should 
there  not  have  been  more  perfect  recuperation?  It  is 
said  that  we  accumulate  poisonous  waste-products,  so 
that  the  fire  of  life  is  smothered  in  its  own  ashes. 
But  why  should  there  not  have  been  more  perfect 
sifting?  It  is  said  that  the  regulative  system — made 
up  of  the  organs  of  internal  secretion — loses  its  ac- 
tivity. But  why?  It  seems  as  if  these  were  rather 
symptoms  than  causes  of  old  age;  we  can  conceive  of 
ways  in  which  they  might  be  evaded.  There  must  be 
some  more  radical  imperfection.  That  is  disclosed 
when  we  ask  whether  it  is  really  the  case  that  all 
living  creatures  must  and  do  grow  old  and  die.  The 


2o6  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

answer  is  in  the  negative.  Most  of  the  simplest 
organisms  are  continually  making  good  their  wear  and 
tear,  and  seem  to  be  exempt  in  natural  conditions  from 
natural  death.  There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that 
even  some  of  the  simple  multicellular  animals,  like 
fresh-water  polyps  and  Planarian  worms,  are  able  to 
stave  off  natural  death  indefinitely.  Natural  death  is 
due  to  a  mounting  up  of  physiological  debts — part  of 
the  bill  is  paid  in  every  meal  and  in  every  night's  rest, 
but  the  book  is  never  cleared  and  in  spite  of  holidays 
which  knock  off  big  arrears  there  is  always  a  growing 
balance  against  us.  Let  us  not  press  the  metaphor  too 
far;  it  is  to  ourselves  we  are  in  debt.  Now  the  very 
interesting  thing  is  this,  that  among  the  lower  animals 
especially,  but  in  all  to  some  extent,  there  are  processes 
of  rejuvenescence  which  counteract  the  processes  of 
senescence.  In  the  single-celled  animals  the  two  bal- 
ance; in  some  simple  creatures  just  mentioned  they 
also  balance.  Why  should  this  not  occur  higher  up 
the  scale?  The  probable  reason  is  this,  that  in  a  com- 
plicated creature  there  has  to  be  a  more  or  less  per- 
manent framework  within  which  the  vital  processes  of 
metabolism  occur.  This  framework  is  built  up  of  rela- 
tively inactive  constituents,  and  it  is  difficult  to  keep 
these  young.  The  vital  current  deposits  materials  in 
its  flow,  and  the  bed  begins  to  slow  the  stream.  Every 
now  and  then  there  may  be  a  flood  and  a  fresh  erosion 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE  CYCLE     207 

— a  fortnight's  walking  tour— but  there  are  limits  to 
this.  It  is  the  laboratory  apparatus  that  gets  ex- 
hausted, rather  than  the  materials  or  the  chemist 
within.  Professor  Child,  our  greatest  authority  on  the 
subject,  says:  "  For  his  high  degree  of  individuation 
man  pays  the  penalty  of  individual  death,  and  the  con- 
ditions and  processes  in  the  human  organism  which 
lead  to  death  in  the  end  are  the  conditions  and 
processes  which  make  man  what  he  is."  Perhaps  we 
may  say  that  natural  death  was  the  price  paid  for 
having  a  body  at  all,  and  that  senescence  is  the  tax 
on  a  body  worth  having. 

We  have  sympathy  with  those  who  wave  aside  our 
biological  theories  of  senescence  and  rejuvenescence 
and  demand  a  recipe  for  remaining  young.  That  is 
the  really  interesting  aspect  of  the  problem. 

Now  the  greatest  authority  on  this  subject  was 
Metchnikoff,  who  died  in  1916,  and  not  so  very  old 
either.  His  conclusion,  well  grounded  in  fact,  was  that 
if  man  lived  a  more  careful  and  more  temperate  life, 
and  had  a  more  enlightened  understanding  of  the  lim- 
itations and  disharmonies  of  his  constitution,  he  would 
no  longer,  as  Buffon  said,  die  of  disappointment,  but 
would  everywhere  attain  a  hundred  years.  The  two 
poisonings  that  age  us  most,  he  said,  are  those  of 
alcoholism  and  syphilis.  He  quoted  with  approval  the 
saying  of  one  of  the  founders  of  modern  physiology 


208  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

(Pfliiger): — "Avoid  the  things  that  are  harmful  and 
be  moderate  in  all  things  " — theoretically  simple  ad- 
vice. Metchnikoff  was  an  untiring  advocate  of  butter- 
milk and  that  sort  of  thing;  and  that  is  well;  for  the 
character  of  our  old  age  depends  on  the  character  of 
our  physiological  bad  debts.  But  Metchnikoff  s  teach- 
ing must  be  supplemented  by  more  positive  encourage- 
ment of  rejuvenescence.  Better  than  buttermilk  is  a 
cruse  of  the  oil  of  joy.  Preventive  measures  are  very 
desirable,  but  we  need  more  positive  rejuvenescence; 
we  need  more  changes,  new  interests,  fresh  experi- 
ences, some  adventures,  more  beauty,  more  joy.  Thus 
we  increase  our  chance  of  being  young  when  we  die. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
POPULATION  PROBLEMS. 

§  i.  The  Need  for  Caution.— §  2.  The  Biological  Alterna- 
tives as  regards  Population:  the  Spawning  Solution  and 
Economised  Reproduction. — §  3.  Spencer's  Generalisa- 
tion as  to  Individuation  and  Genesis. — §  4.  Rise  and 
Fall  in  Population. — §  5.  The  Persistent  Increase  in  the 
Population  of  the  Globe. — §  6.  Causes  of  the  Fatting 
Birth-rate. — §  7.  Good  and  Evil  in  the  Decline  of  the 
Birth-rate. 

§  i.    The  Need  for  Caution. 

THE  problems  raised  by  the  rise  and  fall  in  the 
population  of  a  country  demand  an  unusual  degree  of 
caution  and  critical  judgment.  There  is  no  security 
in  predicting  all  that  may  be  involved  in  a  deliberate 
control  of  the  birth-rate,  and  we  have  not  anything 
like  the  full  facts  before  us  in  regard  to  what  actually 
happens  in  our  midst.  Therefore  we  should  walk 
warily  and  be  content  for  a  while  to  balance  provi- 
sional findings  and  to  look  out  for  guiding  principles. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  there  are  facts  and  facts. 
When  we  pass  from  relatively  simple  things,  like  stars 
and  stones,  to  complex  living  creatures  and  to  still 

209 


210  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

more  complex  human  societies,  it  becomes  increasingly 
difficult  to  get  our  facts  clear-cut  and  complete.  A 
falling  stone  near  the  earth's  surface  has  an  accelera- 
tion of  about  32  feet  per  second.  That  is  a  clear-cut 
complete  fact.  But  when  we  say  that  nesting  terns 
can  find  their  way  home  over  an  unknown  area  from 
a  distance  of  a  thousand  miles,  the  fact  is  less  clear- 
cut  and  less  complete.  Half-a-dozen  questions  rise  at 
once,  what  percentage  find  their  way,  how  long  do 
they  take,  do  they  fly  in  a  straight  line  or  tentatively 
hither  and  thither,  and  so  on.  And  when  we  say 
that  the  crude  birth-rate  in  Ireland  in  1901  was  22.7 
per  1,000  of  the  population,  and  that  of  Scotland  29.5, 
we  are  stating  a  fact  so  incomplete  that  it  is  positively 
misleading.  We  have  to  know,  for  instance,  the  rela- 
tive numbers  of  child-bearing  women  in  that  year  in 
the  two  countries.  We  have  to  know  how  many  mar- 
ried couples  emigrated  from  Ireland  in  1901  before 
their  first  child  was  born.  The  more  complex  the 
phenomena,  the  more  difficult  is  it  to  get  clear-cut 
complete  facts. 

§  2.   Biological  Alternatives  as  regards  Population: 

the  Spawning  Solution  and  Economised 

Reproduction. 

To  understand  population  problems  it  is  first  of  all 
necessary    to   get   the   biological    foundations    clear. 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  211 

Living  creatures  are  encompassed  by  difficulties  and 
limitations.  To  these  they  answer  back  in  many  dif- 
ferent ways,  using  armour,  weapons,  capacities  of  con- 
cealment, circumventions,  changes  of  habit  and  habitat 
— in  short,  all  manner  of  shifts  and  devices.  They 
use  their  fitnesses  and  they  frequently  strike  out  little 
improvements  in  these.  This  answering  back  to  the 
environing  difficulties  and  limitations  constitutes  the 
struggle  for  existence,  especially  when  there  is  some- 
thing novel  and  individual  in  the  answer.  The  strug- 
gle for  existence  is  a  technical  and  metaphorical  term; 
it  need  not  be  sanguinary;  it  sometimes  leads  to  the 
sifting  out  of  the  relatively  fitter  to  given  conditions. 
The  great  law  of  life  is  that  species  survive  in  virtue 
of  qualities  of  relative  fitness.  Fittest  does  not  mean 
strongest,  cleverest,  gentlest— it  means  best  adapted 
to  the  given  conditions.  The  tapeworm  is  as  fit  for 
its  inglorious  life  of  ease  in  the  food-canal  of  a  dog 
as  the  lark  at  heaven's  gate.  Some  animals  survive 
because  they  are  strong,  others  because  they  are 
clever,  others  because  they  have  found  a  safe  habitat 
(such  as  a  cave),  others  because  they  are  so  quick, 
others  because  they  have  a  garment  of  invisibility. 
But  all  succeed  because  they  have  certain  qualities  of 
fitness.  Professor  Punnett  calculates  that  if  in  a  popu- 
lation of  10,000  wild  animals  in  a  district  there  were 
10  of  a  new  and  promising  variety,  which  had  a  5 


212  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

per  cent,  selection  advantage  over  the  original  forms, 
the  latter  would  almost  completely  disappear  in  less 
than  a  hundred  generations,  and  of  course  there  might 
be  several  generations,  as  in  rats  and  rabbits,  in  a 
year.  So  if  the  sifting  is  consistent  and  persistent  a 
change  may  come  about  in  a  comparatively  short  time. 
A  dark  variety  of  the  Pepper  Moth  (Amphidasys 
betularia)  has  in  a  few  years  gained  a  majority  over 
the  typical  form  in  some  parts  of  England;  a  dark 
variety  of  Rice-bird  (Oryzivora)  is  superseding  the 
typical  form  in  the  West  Indies.  We  know  of  a 
number  of  these  changes  occurring  at  present  in  wild 
nature,  and  we  know  what  is  done  by  analogous 
methods  in  domestication  and  cultivation. 

But  besides  strength,  quickness,  cleverness,  armour, 
weapons,  inconspicuousness,  and  so  on,  there  is 
another  quality  that  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  sur- 
vival, and  that  is  fertility.  Variants  with  valuable 
life-saving  qualities  will  become  the  dominant  type  of 
the  species  more  rapidly  if  they  are  also  more  prolific 
than  their  neighbours.  Other  things  equal,  low  birth- 
rate may  be  a  serious  handicap.  The  success  of  a 
strain  or  species,  in  short,  depends  in  part  on  its  rela- 
tive fertility. 

So,  as  every  one  knows,  a  great  many  animals  are 
prodigiously  fertile.  A  cod  has  several  millions  of 
eggs;  if  these  all  developed  into  codlings  and  these 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  213 

into  codfish  there  would  soon  be  no  more  fishing,  and 
that  would  be  the  end  of  the  world.  There  is  a  star- 
fish, called  Luidia — and  not  a  very  common  one — 
which  has  200  million  eggs.  Huxley  calculated  that  if 
the  descendants  of  a  single  green-fly  all  survived  and 
multiplied,  they  would,  at  the  end  of  summer,  weigh 
down  the  population  of  China.  An  oyster  may  have 
60  million  eggs,  and  the  average  American  yield  is  16 
millions.  If  all  the  progeny  of  one  oyster  survived 
and  multiplied,  its  great-great-grandchildren  would 
number  66  with  33  noughts  after  it,  and  the  heap  of 
shells  would  be  eight  times  the  size  of  our  Earth. 
"Which  is  absurd,"  as  Euclid  used  to  say — when 
(according  to  Samuel  Butler)  he  was  tired  of  arguing. 

This  great  fertility  is  an  obviously  effective  solution 
of  the  problem  of  survival — the  spawning  solution.  It 
is  not  without  its  good  points,  for  it  may  enable  the 
creature — say,  fish  or  frog — to  concentrate  the  busi- 
ness of  multiplication  into  a  short  period  of  the  year. 
It  may  also  enable  the  creature  to  dispense  with  the 
embarrassment  of  parental  care.  With  a  family  of  a 
million,  there  is  considerable  margin  for  accidents, 
and  nursing  is  gratuitous. 

There  are  disadvantages,  however,  to  the  spawning 
solution.  We  need  not  refer  to  what  is  often  called 
the  enormous  wastage  of  young  life,  for  it  is  difficult 
to  explain  what  wastage  means  in  the  case  of  an  ani- 


214  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

mal  like  the  herring,  and  it  is  certainly  not  wastage 
in  relation  to  the  broad  economy  of  nature,  which  is 
to  such  a  large  extent  a  chain  of  incarnations.  What 
does  seem  a  disadvantage,  however,  is  the  exhaustion 
of  the  parent,  notably  of  the  mother,  when  large  num- 
bers are  produced  at  once.  Butterflies  usually  die 
after  egg-laying;  so  do  marine  lampreys  after  spawn- 
ing; and  the  same  is  probably  true  of  eels.  Death  is 
often  the  nemesis  of  launching  new  lives. 

The  other  line  of  solution  is  economised  reproduc- 
tion in  both  sexes,  and  this  is  associated  with  parental 
care — with  giving  the  offspring  a  really  good  start. 
The  young  creature  must  be  launched  well  equipped, 
and  this  takes  time  and  energy.  The  offspring  must 
be  few  and  widely  spaced.  The  reduction  of  the  num- 
ber is  more  than  compensated  for  by  the  correlated 
reduction  of  the  infantile  mortality.  Quality  wins 
against  quantity.  The  flower  of  the  grass  with  one 
seed  exceedingly  well  equipped  and  well  advanced 
when  set  adrift  is  far  more  successful  than  the  flower 
of  the  orchid  with  hundreds  of  seeds  which  are  lib- 
erated poorly  equipped  and  as  it  were  prema- 
turely. 

Another  good  example  is  the  old-fashioned  relic 
called  Peripatus,  which  brings  forth  its  young — 
miniatures  of  itself — after  a  very  long  ante-natal  life. 
The  fact  that  they  are  so  highly  developed  at  birth  is 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS          215 

surely  in  adaptation  to  their  precarious  existence, 
without  armour  and  weapons,  in  this  rough-and-tumble 
world. 

Thus  in  many  different  corners  and  at  many  dif- 
ferent levels  in  the  animal  kingdom  we  find  mating 
(which  often  means  prolonged  partnership),  and 
parental  care,  and,  it  may  be,  the  beginning  of  family 
life.  Time  and  again  animals  have  turned  from  the 
facile  solution  of  spawning  to  economised  reproduction 
which  secures  survival  by  giving  the  offspring  a  good 
send-off  on  the  journey  of  life.  What  has  actually 
happened  has  been  that,  in  certain  conditions  of  life, 
survival  has  been  with  those  types  that  varied  in  the 
direction  of  reduced  reproductivity  and  at  the  same 
time  in  the  direction  of  better  equipment  of  the  young 
or  on  the  line  of  parental  care. 

In  their  reproductive  relations,  as  in  so  many  other 
ways,  wild  birds  command  our  admiration.  Their  sex- 
instincts,  so  intense  in  their  expression,  are  sharply 
punctuated,  being  asleep  for  most  of  the  year;  the 
mother  is  not  encumbered  by  having  to  carry  the  un- 
born young;  the  egg-laying  is  physiologically  inexpen- 
sive; the  males  often  share  in  nest-making  and  nur- 
turing; there  is  sometimes  prolonged  monogamous 
partnership  and  what  at  any  rate  mimics  human  affec- 
tion; the  care  of  the  eggs  and  of  the  young  is  so  suc- 
cessful that  the  greatly  economised  reproduction  works 


216  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

well;  the  young  are  in  some  cases  able  to  look  after 
themselves  soon  after  hatching. 

The  three  lowest  Mammals  (the  duckmole  and  the 
spiny  ant-eaters)  lay  eggs;  the  Marsupials,  like  opos- 
sum and  kangaroo,  have  but  a  short  gestation,  and 
only  one  of  them  is  known  to  have  a  true  placenta, 
binding  the  unborn  young  to  the  mother's  womb.  The 
true  placenta,  which  mediates  in  the  intimate  ante- 
natal partnership,  is  confined  to  the  ordinary  mam- 
mals, like  carnivores,  ungulates,  rodents,  insectivores, 
monkeys,  and  man,  and  it  permits,  in  a  new  way,  of  a 
high  degree  of  development  being  reached  before  the 
young  are  born.  In  elephants  the  ante-natal  life  or 
period  of  gestation  actually  lasts  for  more  than  a  year. 

The  typically  mammalian  method  of  motherhood 
may  cost  the  mother  a  good  deal,  but  she  often  gets 
something  back  in  increased  health,  and  it  is  probably 
on  the  whole  less  costly  than  the  spawning  method.  It 
has  the  advantage  of  giving  the  offspring  a  fine  send- 
off  with  a  big  educable  brain.  It  is  probable  that  the 
long  partnership  between  mother  and  offspring  before 
birth  has  helped  in  the  evolution  of  gentleness,  pa- 
tience, and  affection.  Other  things  equal,  the  more 
maternal  mother  will  have  more  children,  thereby  dif- 
fusing her  kindly  gregarious  temperament.  But  she 
will  also  tend  to  give  them  more  careful  and  successful 
nurture.  Thus,  in  two  ways  there  will  be  a  selection 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  217 

of  the  more  domesticated  or  more  mammalian  types. 
This  has  probably  meant  much  in  man's  evolution. 

Compared  with  fishes  and  amphibians,  birds  and 
mammals  are  on  the  tack  of  economised  reproductivity 
and  enhanced  parental  care.  Compared  with  a  Blue 
Tit  or  a  Common  Wren,  often  with  8  eggs,  the  Guil- 
lemot with  only  i  shows  the  same  economy;  it  stakes 
everything  on  one  egg  for  the  year,  and  yet  it  holds 
its  own  well.  Compared  with  rats  and  mice,  highly 
evolved  mammals  like  bats  and  monkeys  show  great 
reproductive  economy,  for  they  usually  bring  forth 
only  one  offspring  at  a  time.  The  important  general 
fact  is  that  Man,  however  variable  his  fertility  in  dif- 
ferent races  and  in  different  sections  of  the  com- 
munity, is  on  the  evolutionary  tack  of  economised  re- 
productivity  and  high  parental  care.  It  is  an  impor- 
tant truth  that  everything  became  in  some  measure 
new  when  Man  became  Man,  but  it  is  likewise  of 
importance  to  understand  that  Man  has  simply  devel- 
oped or  elaborated  a  mode  of  evolution  that  is  as  old 
as  many  of  the  hills. 

§  3.   Spencer's  Generalisation  as  to  Individuation 
and  Genesis. 

Herbert  Spencer,  after  a  prolonged  argument, 
reached  the  conclusion  that  genesis  decreases  as  indi- 
viduation  increases;  the  two  are  in  inverse  ratio.  In- 


2i 8  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

dividuation  means  complexity,  fullness  and  freedom  of 
life.  The  tapeworm  with  its  degenerate  body  and 
drifting  life  of  ease  has  its  millions  of  embryos;  the 
golden  eagle  with  its  complex  body  and  controlled  life 
has  two  eaglets  at  a  time.  It  must  be  noted,  however, 
that  what  Spencer  really  showed  was  that  the  inverse 
ratio  between  individuation  and  genesis  is  an  evolu- 
tionary result,  a  fact  of  observation;  he  did  not  prove 
that  high  individuation  directly  lessens  fertility.  Per- 
haps it  does,  but  that  has  not  been  proved.  The  fact 
is  that  we  know  very  little  regarding  the  physiology 
of  fertility.  Statements  as  to  the  infertility  of  men 
of  great  ability  (illustrating  inborn  individuation),  or 
as  to  infertility  being  the  result  of  changes  in  the 
physical  and  mental  education  of  girls  (illustrating 
acquired  individuation),  are  to  be  regarded  with  great 
scepticism.  We  know  that  high  nutrition  of  ewes 
before  breeding  season  greatly  increases  the  number 
of  twins,  but  we  dare  not  say  that  luxurious  living  in 
Man  either  increases  or  decreases  fertility. 

What  the  evidence  from  the  animal  kingdom  shows 
is  this,  that  when  birds,  for  instance,  evolved  big 
brains  and  strong  parental  instincts,  it  became  pos- 
sible for  them  to  survive  with  much  smaller  families. 
We  must  rid  our  minds  of  all  thoughts  of  prevision 
on  the  part  of  bird-parents,  or  of  any  providence  that 
favoured  variations  in  the  direction  of  racial  welfare. 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  219 

What  probably  happened  was  this.  Those  types  that 
varied  in  the  direction  of  better  brains  and  increased 
parental  care,  and  at  the  same  time  in  the  direction  of 
economised  reproductivity,  were  naturally  in  certain 
conditions  of  existence  the  surviving  types,  and  di- 
rected the  course  of  racial  evolution.  Did  reduced 
reproductivity  prompt  parental  care;  or  did  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  family  and  its  worries  make  better  brains 
possible?  We  do  not  know.  It  is  -probable  that  two 
more  or  less  independent  lines  of  variation — the 
organism  is  a  unity — worked  into  one  another's  hands. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  press  the  question  whether 
increased  civilisation  may  not  directly  lessen  fertility. 
But  we  cannot  give  a  convincing  answer.  It  is  easy 
to  ask  for  the  children  of  the  great  men  of  the  world — 
Aristotle,  St.  Paul,  Descartes,  Newton,  Hume,  Leib- 
nitz, Kant,  Kelvin,  and  so  on;  but  it  is  not  difficult 
to  compile  a  good  list  of  famous  fathers^ — Darwins, 
Herschels,  Bernouillis,  Jussieus,  Hookers.  Sir  Walter 
Scott  was  a  seventh  son;  John  Wesley  was  one  of  nine- 
teen; Tennyson  one  of  seven.  The  strongly  indi- 
viduated Brahmins  and  Rajputs  of  high  caste  are  said 
to  show  no  dwindling  fertility. 

What  is  one  to  make  of  the  fact  that  the  average 
size  of  the  family  among  college-trained  gentlefolk  in 
the  States  is  under  two?  What  is  one  to  make  of  the 
large  number  of  childless  marriages  among  profes- 


220  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

sional  classes  in  Britain?  The  question  is  whether 
there  is  a  constitutional  decrease  of  fecundity,  or 
whether  what  is  observed  is  in  the  main  an  indirect 
result.  For  it  is  probable  that  a  reduction  of  fer- 
tility among  the  highly  individuated  may  be  in  part 
due  to  the  frequency  of  marriages  that  are  not  love- 
marriages,  to  the  frequency  of  late-marriages,  to 
selfish  or  timid  non-maternity,  to  deliberate  evasion  of 
parentage,  and  even  to  overstrain  in  early  efforts  after 
self-realisation.  It  is  also  to  be  remembered  that,  up 
to  a  certain  point,  improved  conditions  of  life  tend  to 
lessen  multiplication  indirectly,  for  new  interests  di- 
vert the  animal  nature  and  better  housing  lessens  the 
provocations  to  sensuality. 

While  there  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  occurrence  of 
types  constitutionally  sterile,  or  relatively  infertile,  or 
with  strongly  inhibited  sex-impulses,  little  is  known  as 
as  their  relative  frequency;  and  apparent  infertility 
among  the  highly  individuated  can  be  in  great  part 
accounted  for  as  an  indirect  result.  There  is  very 
little  evidence  that  heightened  individuation  brings 
about  lessened  reproductivity  as  a  physiological  con- 
sequence in  the  individual. 

§  4.    Rise  and  Fall  in  Population. 

Even  in  ancient  times  fluctuations  of  population 
were  well  known.  Over  and  ever  again  the  following 


POPULATION  PROBLEM-S  221 

sequence  occurred.  In  a  limited  area  the  increasing 
population  began  to  overtake  the  means  of  subsistence. 
To  relieve  the  pressure  recourse  was  had  to  all  sorts 
of  expedients — exposing  the  children,  infanticide,  abor- 
tion, emigration,  war,  and  so  on.  The  Trojan  War 
was  definitely  regarded  as  a  timely  solution  of  the 
problem  of  "  a  world  too  full  of  people  ".  Moreover, 
epidemics  and  famine  often  halved  the  number  of 
eaters;  irrigation,  improved  cultivation,  and  the  like 
occasionally  increased  the  food-supply.  In  Greece  an 
equilibrium  was  attained  about  the  time  of  Aristotle 
and  Alexander  the  Great.  But  as  Prof.  J.  L.  Myres 
points  out,  industrial  slavery,  indifference  to  parent- 
hood, addiction  to  club-life  brought  a  most  gifted  race 
to  an  end.  Dean  Inge  suggests  that  another  factor 
was  hopelessness  about  a  future  life,  but  that  does 
not  seem  to  have  affected  the  Chinese.  Of  more  im- 
portance probably,  as  a  factor  in  decline,  was  the 
failure  to  give  the  women  and  the  children  opportuni- 
ties for  systematic  education,  and  the  short-sighted 
acquiescence  in  the  breaking  up  of  home  life.  These 
things  are  a  parable  for  our  instruction. 

Industrial  Age. — For  a  long  time  before  the  eigh- 
teenth century  there  seems  to  have  been  in  Britain 
a  slow  increase  of  numbers  or  even  a  population- 
equilibrium  (as  now  in  China),  save  for  short  periods 
after  wars  and  plagues.  Births  made  up  for  deaths. 


222  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

There  were  more  births  than  deaths  in  the  country, 
which  God  made;  and  there  were  more  deaths  than 
births  in  the  towns,  which  man  made;  so  that  town 
and  country  between  them  kept  a  balance.  The 
apologists  for  Providence  in  those  days  used  to 
refer  to  this  wonderful  adjustment  of  births  and 
deaths. 

But  in  the  course  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  pre- 
established  harmony  was  dissolved  in  discord.  The 
population  began  to  go  up  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Be- 
tween 1750  and  1800  the  population  of  England  and 
Wales  rose  from  6,500,000  to  9  millions.  This  was 
associated  with  the  sombre  onset  of  the  industrial  age, 
with  its  factories  and  machinery.  The  expansion 
reached  its  climax  about  the  middle  of  the  Victorian 
period.  It  is  one  of  the  most  stupendous  facts  in 
human  biology  that  the  population  of  Europe,  about 
187  millions  in  1800,  was  266  millions  in  1850,  and 
400  millions  in  1900.  In  the  nineteenth  century  the 
population  of  England  and  Wales  was  more  than 
trebled  (in  1789,  127  millions;  in  1890,  38  millions, 
the  same  as  that  of  France,  which  had  26  millions  in 
1789).  From  one  case  we  may  learn  all.  What  con- 
ditioned this  extraordinarily  rapid  increase  in  the  popu- 
lation? Some  are  inclined  to  emphasise  a  single  factor 
— the  economic  factor — that  big  families  '  payed  ' — 
'  payed '  workers  and  employers  alike.  But  we  are 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  223 

bound  to  recognise  at  least  three  other  factors,  (i)  In 
the  early  industrialism  there  were  great  waves  of  mate- 
rial prosperity, — plenty  of  work,  big  wages,  falling 
prices.  Now  a  sudden  glut  of  material  prosperity 
tends  to  slacken  men's  grip  and  restraint.  This  tends 
to  raise  the  birth-rate.  The  most  widespread  pros- 
perity was  in  the  middle  of  the  great  Victorian  period, 
when  the  birth-rate  reached  its  maximum  of  36.3  per 
thousand. 

(2)  But,  as  Havelock  Ellis  says,  "The  magnifi- 
cence of  this  epoch  was  built  over  circles  of  Hell  to 
which  the  imagination  of  Dante  never  attained."    And 
when  people  lose  heart  and  are  reckless   excessive 
birth-rate   may   follow,   just   as    from   the   opposite 
causes.    We  read  in  Exodus  i:  "  But  the  more  they 
afflicted     them,     the     more     they     multiplied    and 
grew." 

(3)  Another  reason  for  the  rapid  increase  of  the 
population  was  that  in  the  latter  part  of  the  period 
there  began  to  be  notable  advances  in  preventive  medi- 
cine and  hygiene.    Man  was  entering  into  his  kingdom 
— in  controlling  the  death-rate.    One  must  remember 
the  very  important  fact  that  since  1865  tne  duration 
of  life  in  England   and  Wales  has   risen   about  a 
third. 

(4)  Having  admitted  the  reality  of  other  factors, 
we  are  now  free  scientifically  to  recognise  the  vast 


224  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

importance  of  economic  conditions.  There  is  no 
doubt,  surely,  that  the  unprecedented  multiplication 
had  to  do  with  the  fact  that  children  were  sent  out  in 
tender  years — one  recalls  the  pictures  in  Wells's  Clay- 
hanger — to  the  factories  and  mines  to  increase  their 
parents'  incomes;  and  that  the  employers  said  Amen. 
Those  who  have  gone  deeply  into  Natural  History  say 
that  foxes  quite  approve  of  large  families  among 
rabbits. 

The  Over-population  Cry. — A  generation  ago  those 
who  lived  in  large  towns  in  Britain  were  familiar  with 
Population  meetings.  The  cry  was  that  the  world 
would  soon  be  "  too  full  of  people  ", — the  words  used 
in  Greece  two  thousand  years  before.  Much  reference 
was  made  to  Malthus,  who  advised  his  generation  to 
avoid  the  terrible  positive  checks  to  over-population — 
namely,  famine,  disease,  infanticide,  and  war,  by  prac- 
tising prudential  checks  of  postponing  marriage  and 
practising  moral  restraint  after  marriage.  He  did  not 
realise  the  possibilities  of  increasing  the  food-supply 
or  the  possibilities  of  more  or  less  artificial  birth- 
control.  The  most  practicable  piece  of  advice  he  gave 
amounted  to  "  Marry  late  ",  and  most  biologists  are 
agreed  that  this  advice  was  very  unsound  bio- 
logically. 

There  was  considerable  misunderstanding  of  Dar- 
winism. For  it  was  said:  Let  us  not  interfere  with 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  225 

Nature's  sifting;  leave  things  alone  and  all  will  come 
right.  In  spite  of  Darwin's  express  warning,  it  was 
assumed  that  famine,  disease,  infanticide,  and  war 
may  be  trusted  to  sift  in  the  right  direction.  There 
were  also  more  excusable  misunderstandings  of  Her- 
bert Spencer's  doctrine,  and  the  "  old  woman  who  lived 
in  a  shoe,  and  had  so  many  children  that  she  did  not 
know  what  to  do  "  was  told  that  she  should  have  been 
more  individuated.  Finally,  from  James  Mill  to  begin 
with,  there  were  whispers .  of  various  means  which 
might  be  employed  after  marriage  to  keep  down  the 
family. 

Looking  backwards,  we  see  some  sense  in  all  the 
suggestions.  Prudence  within  limits  is  good,  though 
it  is  a  pity  when  it  kills  the  spirit  of  adventure  or 
leads  to  unwholesome  repression;  over-coddling  is  bad, 
but  mere  thinning  of  a  dense  population  can  mean 
little  more  than  wastage;  education  and  pitching  the 
life  high  must  always  make  for  progress,  but  it  is  not 
known  that  they  directly  affect  fertility;  and  a  control 
of  births  seems  to  many  to  be  in  line  with  other  steps 
which  man  has  taken  profitably  in  directing  his  own 
evolution. 

But  what  happened?  The  tide  turned,  in  1877  in 
England,  as  men  were  arguing  how  to  stem  its  ad- 
vance. The  birth-rate  per  thousand  of  the  population 
was  32  about  1850;  it  rose  a  little  (helped  by  more 


226  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

thorough  registration)  to  its  maximum  36.3  in  1876, 
the  year  of  the  Bradlaugh-Besant  trial;  it  has  steadily 
fallen  to  about  24  per  thousand.  This  movement  of 
decreasing  birth-rate,  in  which  France  led  the  way,  is 
now  common  to  all  the  more  highly  civilised  nations. 
The  decline,  corrected  with  reference  to  the  number 
of  wives  under  forty-five,  has  during  the  last  thirty 
years  or  so  been  most  marked  in  New  South  Wales, 
then  in  Victoria,  Belgium,  Saxony,  New  Zealand. 
There  has  also  been  a  considerable  decline  in  France, 
Germany,  England,  and  Denmark.  There  is  little  evi- 
dence of  any  in  Russia  and  the  Balkans.  Apart  from 
a  few  interesting  exceptions,  it  may  be  said  that  among 
English-speaking  people  there  has  been  a  decrease  of 
about  one-third  in  the  last  forty  years.  But  it  must 
always  be  kept  in  mind  that  this  has  to  be  brought 
into  correlation  with  changes  in  the  death-rate  and  in 
the  marriage-rate. 

While  we  cannot  enter  into  details  regarding  the 
decline  of  the  birth-rate,, we  must  call  attention  to  a 
few  general  facts.  The  decline  is  most  marked  in 
areas  where  the  highest  standard  of  living  prevails  and 
vice  versa.  In  illustration  of  this  Dr.  C.  Killick  Mill- 
ard,  in  his  effective  address  on  "  Population  and 
Birth  Control"  (1917),  contrasts  Hampstead,  a  typ: 
ical  middle-  and  upper-class  residential  district,  with 
Shoreditch,  a  poor  working-class  district.  In  1881, 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS          227 

the  birth-rates  of  these  two  districts  were  approxi- 
mately equal,  viz.,  30  and  31  respectively.  "In  1914, 
Hampstead's  birth-rate  had  fallen  to  14.8,  whilst  that 
of  Shoreditch  remained  at  the  old  figure.  The  same 
tendency  exists  in  almost  every  town." 

The  decrease  is  much  more  marked  in  the  upper 
and  middle  classes  than  among  the  poor,  much  more 
marked  among  skilled  workmen  than  among  unskilled. 
In  a  table  of  comparative  fertility  for  England,  which 
refers  only  to  women  of  child-bearing  age,  the  four 
occupations  at  the  top  end  are  coal-miners  (126.4), 
agricultural  labourers  (113.4),  boilermakers  (no.i), 
farmers  (100.5).  The  numbers  show  proportions  to 
a  general  population  fertility  taken  as  100.  The  four 
at  the  lower  end  of  the  list  are  nonconformist  minis- 
ters (79.8),  Church  of  England  clergymen  (72), 
teachers  (70.3),  and  doctors  (64.7). 

The  smaller  the  number  of  rooms  the  larger  is  the 
family,  and  the  death-rate  among  infants  is  always 
highest  where  the  birth-rate  is  highest.  Making  some 
notable  exceptions,  e.g.  for  coal-miners,  who  are  phys- 
ically a  fine  set  of  men — Dr.  Millard  writes:  "  It  ap- 
pears undeniable  that  poverty,  degradation,  ineffi- 
ciciency,  ignorance,  over-crowding,  almost  everything, 
in  fact,  that  in  human  judgment  tends  to  disqualify 
for  parenthood,  are  just  the  factors  nowadays  which 
too  often  coexist  with  large  families." 


228  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

§  5.   The  Persistent  Increase  of  the  Population 
of  the  Globe. 

There  are  some  careful  students  of  Population 
Problems  who  warn  us  that  concern  about  the  present 
decline  of  the  birth-rate  is  very  short-sighted,  since 
the  real  cloud  in  the  sky  is  the  persistent  increase  in 
the  number  of  the  world's  inhabitants.  We  may  refer 
to  an  able  address  by  a  distinguished  biologist,  Prof. 
E.  M.  East  (Scientific  Monthly,  June,  1920).  At 
present  the  population  of  the  globe  stands  at  about 
1,700  millions.  But  it  does  not  stand;  it  is  being 
added  to  at  the  rate  of  between  14  and  16  millions 
a  year.  The  white  race  is  increasing  much  more  rap- 
idly than  the  yellow  or  the  black;  China's  300  million 
population  is  practically  stationary.  With  the  excep- 
tion of  France,  few  white  peoples  are  increasing  at  a 
less  rate  than  10  per  thousand  every  year.  It  is  true 
that  in  most  civilised  countries  there  is  a  steady  de- 
crease in  the  birth-rate,  but  the  effect  of  this  in  reduc- 
ing the  population  is  counteracted  by  the  lowering  of 
the  death-rate. 

In  his  Presidential  Address  to  the  Agricultural  Sec- 
tion of  the  British  Association  (in  1920),  Prof.  Keeble 
maintained  that  as  a  population  increases,  so  does  the 
intensity  of  its  cultivation;  but  Professor  East  finds 
little  satisfaction  in  this  idea.  The  law  of  diminishing 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  229 

returns  operates  widely;  it  is  even  now  in  operation 
in  a  comparatively  new  country  like  America,  thought 
to  be  supplied  with  inexhaustible  riches.  There  are 
limits  to  the  harvest. 

Professor  East  views  with  concern  the  persistent 
increase  of  the  world's  population.  If  the  rate  of 
increase  actually  existent  in  the  United  States  should 
continue,  within  the  span  of  life  of  the  grandchildren 
of  persons  now  living  the  States  will  contain  more 
than  a  billion  inhabitants  (meaning  a  thousand  mil- 
lions). "Long  before  this  eventuality,  the  struggle 
for  existence  in  those  portions  of  the  world  at  present 
more  densely  populated  will  be  something  beyond  the 
imagination  of  those  of  us  who  have  lived  in  a  time 
of  plenty." 

The  cloud  grows  denser  when  it  is  noticed  that  the1 
birth-rate  of  the  foreign  population  of  the  United 
States,  coming  largely  now  from  eastern  and  southern 
Europe,  is  so  much  greater  than  that  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  stock  (to  which,  it  is  claimed,  most  of  the  supe- 
rior types  belong),  that  within  a  century  the  latter 
will  be  but  a  fraction  of  the  whole.  Professor  East 
looks  forward  with  hope  to  a  severe  restriction  of  im- 
migration; to  the  spread  of  education,  which  seems 
to  be  correlated  with  a  lowering  of  the  birth-rate;  to 
equitable  readjustment  in  many  economic  customs,  for 
the  word  '  proletariat '  is  suggestiys  enough;  to  ra- 


23o  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

tional  marriage-selection,  which  will  tend  to  an  in- 
crease of  the  birth-rate  in  families  of  high  civic  value; 
and  among  the  rank  and  file  to  a  restriction  of  births 
commensurate  with  the  family  resources  and  the 
mother's  strength. 

While  it  is  impossible  to  predict  what  may  yet  be 
done  in  the  way  of  increasing  the  harvest  which  man 
gathers  at  present  from  land  and  sea  (there  are  scores 
of  devices  waiting  to  be  tried) ;  and  while  it  is  impos- 
sible to  predict  what  biochemical  advances  await  dis- 
covery, it  seems  common  sense  to  attend  to  Professor 
East's  warning.  For  it  points  towards  a  policy  which 
is  bound  to  be  progressive  whatever  the  future  has  in 
store, — the  policy,  namely,  of  trying  to  secure  a 
more  masterly  and  therefore  more  economical  ex- 
ploitation of  the  resources  of  Nature,  and  of 
trying  to  evade  the  cruder  forms  of  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  by  always  preferring  quality  to 
quantity.  II  jaut  cultiver  son  jardin — in  more  senses 
than  one. 

§  6.   Causes  of  the  Falling  Birth-rate. 

No  complete  answer  can  as  yet  be  given  to  the 
question:  What  are  the  causes  of  the  falling  birth- 
rate? The  problem  is  in  the  hands  of  investigators. 
The  birth-rate  depends  on  many  factors,  and  these  are 
variable.  It  depends  on  the  age-composition  of  the 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  231 

community,  on  the  number  of  wives  under  forty-five, 
on  the  age  at  marriage,  on  the  duration  of  marriage, 
on  the  loyalty  of  husband  and  wife,  on  the  amount  of 
illegitimacy,  on  the  economic  conditions  which  affect 
control  either  through  continence  or  through  some 
evasion  of  parentage,  and  on  some  other  factors  like 
alcoholism  and  reproductive  diseases.  Nutritive  fac- 
tors do  not  seem  of  direct  importance;  mental  devel- 
opment does  not  seem  to  have  much,  if  any,  direct 
effect. 

Among  men  who  have  a  high  standard  of  taste  and 
restricted  means  of  satisfying  this,  the  marriage-rate 
sinks,  the  age  of  marriage  rises,  the  birth-rate  declines. 
There  is  often  an  element  of  selfishness  in  this,  espe- 
cially when  the  demands  of  sex  are  met  outside  of 
matrimony,  but  it  would  be  quite  erroneous  to  write 
down  the  postponement  of  marriage  as  necessarily 
selfish.  It  would  be  equally  erroneous  to  sum  up  a 
certain  type  of  marriage,  at  various  levels  of  society 
from  working-man  to  financier,  as  having  merely  an 
economic  basis.  All  these  phenomena  are  complex 
resultants.  In  past  times  at  certain  levels  the  child 
used  to  be  regarded  as  a  savings-bank  from  which  the 
parents  could  draw  early;  if  children  are  nowadays 
regarded  as  investments  it  is  only  on  the  understanding 
that  they  cannot  yield  a  rapid  return.  Consciously  or 
subconsciously  the  economic  consideration  lingers,  but 


232  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

it  has  not  the  force  that  misery  lent  it  in  worst  days 
of  unregulated  industrialism.  A  new  consideration 
has  arisen.  There  is  a  heightened  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  human  life:  the  child  is  more  precious.  What 
influences  many  parents,  who  have  had  a  hard  fight 
themselves,  is  the  fear  of  being  responsible  for  many 
children — especially  girls,  who  will  have  to  face  a 
similar  struggle  for  existence.  This  fear  may  indicate 
timidity,  but  it  is  certainly  not  selfish.  Many,  again, 
resent  the  wearing  down  of  the  mother's  health  with 
too  frequent  births;  and  the  predominantly  maternal 
and  domestic  role  in  which  our  grandmothers  were 
happy  and  admirable  (and  quite  as  clever  as  their 
grandchildren)  will  not  do  nowadays.  But  just  as 
prudence,  commendable  up  to  a  limit,  may  pass,  on 
the  minus  side,  into  a  non-mammalian  recoil  from 
the  trials  of  maternity  and  the  claims  of  chil- 
dren, so  the  commendable  determination  to  make 
the  best  of  life  in  the  direction  of  fullness,  free- 
dom, and  fitness,  may  pass,  on  the  minus  side, 
into  a  lust  for  gratification  without  responsibili- 
ties. 

Careful  students  of  the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  not  due  to  decline  of 
fertility,  e.g.  as  the  result  of  the  higher  education  of 
girls;  that  it  is  not  more  than  slightly  due  to  changes 
in  the  age  of  marriage  or  in  the  proportion  of  wives 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  233 

of  child-bearing  age;  but  that  it  is  mainly  due  to 
intentioned  restriction  of  births,  to  deliberate  birth- 
control. 

The  Registrar-General  for  England  has  made  the 
important  statement  that  not  more  than  about  17  per 
cent,  of  the  decline  in  the  birth-rate  can  be  accounted 
for  as  the  result  of  abstinence  from  marriage  or  of 
postponement  of  marriage,  and  that  nearly  70  per 
cent,  of  the  decline  must  be  ascribed  to  voluntary 
restriction.  Dr.  Newsholme  of  the  Local  Government 
Board  concludes  that  postponement  and  avoidance  of 
marriage  have  had  little  share  in  causing  the  reduced 
birth-rate  experienced  in  Britain  and  some  other  coun- 
tries during  the  last  thirty  years.  Mr.  Sidney  Webb 
made  a  few  years  ago  (1911)  a  voluntary  confidential 
census,  and  found  out  of  120  fertile  marriages  among 
professional  men  107  '  limited  ',  and  out  of  316  mar- 
riages among  middle-class  people  242  '  limited  '.  Dr. 
Millard  calls  attention  to  a  fact  believed  to  have  been 
brought  out  by  a  recent  Birth-Rate  Commission, 
"  that  the  mean  size  of  the  limited  families  was 
larger  than  that  of  the  unlimited  families.  This  is 
important,  as  it  shows  that  it  is  not  so  much  the  small 
families  which  are  limited,  but  the  families  which 
are  getting  too  large.  In  other  words,  it  is  not  that 
people  nowadays  do  not  desire  children,  but  that  they 
do  not  desire  too  many."  Before  full  reliance  can  be 


234  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

placed  on  such  conclusions,  it  will  be  necessary  to 
Lave  a  larger  body  of  data. 

§7.   Good  and  Evil  in  the  Decline  of  the  Birth-rate. 

Many  wise  men  to-day  regard  the  decline  of  the 
birth-rate  with  as  much  alarm  as  their  fathers  re- 
garded its  continuous  rise  in  the  Early  Victorian 
period.  Is  the  modern  scare  better  grounded  than 
its  predecessor?  The  main  reason  for  foreboding  is 
lest  the  nation  lose  its  place  in  the  sun,  its  military 
and  economic  stability,  and  dwindle  away.  The  de- 
cline of  the  birth-rate  is  regarded  as  the  beginning  of 
a  jacilis  descensus  leading  to  ruin. 

As  we  have  said  before,  in  reference  to  the  *  Nature 
and  Nurture '  controversy,  it  is  very  undesirable  to 
1  take  sides '  in  face  of  a  problem  of  this  sort,  espe- 
cially when  we  have  not  the  facts  fully  before  us. 
We  have  not  to  choose  between  two  antithetic  policies; 
the  problem  is  really  that  of  a  movable  adjustment 
of  the  birth-rate  in  adaptation  to  definite  conditions. 
Every  man  and  wife  have  to  decide  for  themselves  how 
many  children,  if  any,  they  ought  to  have,  and  a 
a  decision  to  limit  the  family  which  was  wise  when 
circumstances  were  straitened  and  prospects  gloomy 
might  well  be  subject  to  revision  some  five  years 
afterwards.  The  control  is  relative  to  many  condi- 
tions, e.g.  (a)  the  likelihood  of  securing  good  educa- 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  235 

tion  and  auspicious  launching  in  life,  a  likelihood 
which  might  be  great  for  two  but  small  for  ten;  (£) 
the  health  of  the  mother;  (c)  the  vigour  of  the  chil- 
dren. Similarly  with  nations,  the  problem  is  relative 
to  conditions.  When  the  land  is  crowded,  when  open- 
ings are  few,  when  employment  is  rife  and  distress 
is  at  the  doors,  it  might  be  wise  to  counsel  restriction 
of  families.  But  when  numbers  are  dwindling  or  have 
been  terribly  reduced,  when  new  opportunities  of  in- 
dustry are  offered,  when  new  countries  are  opening 
out,  when  there  is  vigour  and  mastery,  then  it  might 
be  wise  to  hearken  to  the  old  counsel,  "  Be  fruitful 
and  multiply." 

To  those,  and  there  are  at  present  (1920)  many,  who 
cannot  see  in  the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  anything 
but  menacing  evil,  if  not  '  race-suicide ',  we  would 
submit  the  following  considerations: — (i)  Much  de- 
pends on  how  far  the  decline  goes.  If  there  should 
begin  to  be  an  excess  of  deaths  over  births,  which 
has  not  come  about  even  in  France,  that  would  be 
ominous  indeed.  But  may  not  a  considerable  decline 
in  the  birth-rate  strengthen  a  nation?  May  it  not 
make  for  stability,  by  raising  the  health-rate  and  les- 
sening the  strain  of  domestic  anxieties?  We  can  com- 
pensate for  a  falling  Birth-rate  by  lowering  the  Death- 
rate,  and  also  by  raising  the  Health-rate. 

(2)  The  decline  in  the  birth-rate  is  now  an  almost 


236  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

general  phenomenon  in  so-called  civilised  countries, 
though  the  rate  of  decline  varies  considerably.  If  the 
decline  extends  from  nation  to  nation,  as  it  is  doing, 
it  may  make  little  difference  in  the  numerical  propor- 
tions. The  German  birth-rate  is  said  to  have  reached 
its  climax  forty  years  ago,  just  like  that  of  Britain; 
from  1871  to  1880  it  was  40.7  per  1,000  population 
(paralleled  in  some  Welsh  mining  villages);  in  1906 
it  was  down  to  34,  in  1909  to  31,  in  1912  to  28,  in 
fact  the  birth-rate  in  Germany  is  now  falling  faster 
than  in  England.  The  rate  of  increase  of  population 
in  Germany  for  the  five  years,  1907  to  1911,  was  13 
per  cent.;  for  England  and  Wales,  n  per  cent.;  so 
that  there  is  no  great  difference. 

(3)  It  must  be  remembered  that  one  of  the  condi- 
tions that  make  a  nation  a  menace  to  others  is  a  high 
birth-rate  accompanied  by  a  low  death-rate.  France, 
which  may  be  called,  amid  all  its  prowess,  an  or- 
ganically pacific  country,  had  not  so  very  long  ago  a 
birth-rate  higher  than  that  of  Germany  to-day,  and 
it  was  then,  as  has  been  said,  "  the  most  militarist  and 
aggressive  of  nations,  a  perpetual  menace  to  Europe  ". 
In  regard  to  the  '  yellow  peril '  and  the  like,  it  may 
be  noted  that  birth-control  methods  are  already  in 
use  in  Japan  and  India;  and  that  while  some  Asiatic 
races  show  a  prodigious  birth-rate  of  50  per  1,000 
population,  70  per  cent,  of  the  children  sometimes  die. 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS          237 

Differential  Decline. — But  a  second  reason  for  fore- 
boding is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  decline  is  differ- 
ential; it  affects  certain  sections  of  the  community 
more  than  others.  The  less  desirable — the  thriftless, 
the  careless,  the  unreliable — tend  to  be  the  most  pro- 
lific. The  more  desirable — the  thrifty,  the  educated, 
the  controlled,  those  who  care — tend  to  be  the  least 
prolific.  This  is  very  serious,  for  social  progress  de- 
pends on  a  steady  increase  in  the  proportion  of  the 
more  fit  to  the  less  fit,  and  the  differential  decline  in 
the  birth-rate  seems  working  in  the  wrong  direction. 
(We  shall  leave  out  the  special  case  of  nationalities 
with  a  very  heterogeneous  population — e.g.  America 
with  the  Negroes,  South  Africa  with  the  Kaffirs — and 
keep  to  the  case  of  the  higher  birth-rate  among  the 
less  desirable  members  of  a  society.) 

The  following  considerations  should  be  borne  in 
mind: — (a)  There  is  a  high  death-rate  among  the 
thriftless,  which  counteracts  in  some  measure  their 
high  birth-rate.  But  society  will,  of  course,  continue 
to  try  to  lessen  the  high  death-rate,  (b)  It  is  absurd 
to  talk  as  if  all  people  were  equally  endowed,  but  it 
is  also  absurd  to  talk  as  if  the  desirable  and  the  unde- 
sirable could  be  distinguished  at  a  glance.  Many  peo- 
ple who  have  lost  grip  and  heart  were  made,  not  born, 
undesirable,  and  there  is  more  wrong  with  their  purse 
than  with  their  germ-plasm.  We  do  not  really  know 


238  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

to  what  degree  the  differences  between  the  people  of 
Shoreditch  with  a  high  birth-rate  and  the  people  of 
Highgate  with  a  low  birth-rate  are  extrinsic  (modifica- 
tional)  or  intrinsic  (variational).  It  is  certain  that 
the  production  of  the  fit  and  of  the  remarkably  able 
is  not  a  monopoly  of  any  class.  It  takes  a  lot  of 
different  kinds  of  men  and  women  to  make  a  world 
and  to  keep  it  a-going,  (c)  It  has  also  to  be  remem- 
bered that  all  measures  implying  increased  control  of 
life  work  from  the  more  thoughtful  to  the  less 
thoughtful. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  there  are  facts 
which  warn  us  to  watch  with  anxious  attention  the 
differential  decline  of  the  birth-rate.  Among  the 
miners  of  Rhondha  Valley,  who  are  said  to  be  vigor- 
ous people,  the  birth-rate  is  still  about  40  per  1,000, 
twice  as  much  as  in  a  residential  suburb  of  London. 
The  crucial  question  is  how  far  this  disparity  of  the 
birth-rate  in  different  sections  of  the  community 
will  go. 

In  his  inquiry  into  the  birth-rate  in  different  dis- 
tricts in  London,  Dr.  Heron  was  led  to  the  following 
conclusion: — "  In  those  districts  where  the  profess- 
ional classes  are  most  numerous,  and  where  many 
domestic  servants  are  kept,  there  the  married  have 
fewest  children.  In  districts  where  there  is  overcrowd- 
ing, where  there  is  a  superabundance  of  the  lowest 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  239 

type  of  labour,  where  child-employment  is  most 
prevalent,  where  infant  mortality  is  greatest,  where 
pauperism  is  general,  and  pauper  lunatics  are 
plentiful,  where  signs  of  bad  environment  like 
phthisis  are  prevalent — there  the  birth-rate  is 
highest." 

Few  will  regard  with  misgivings  the  notoriously 
low  birth-rate  among  millionaires,  but  what  about  this 
sort  of  fact: — in  the  eighteenth  century.  Benjamin 
Franklin  declared  that  the  average  number  of  children 
in  a  family  in  North  America  was  8;  at  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  it  seems  to  have  been  about  6; 
in  some  parts  of  America  it  is  down  to  2.7;  among  col- 
lege-bred Americans  it  is  less  than  2.  Less  than  2 
seems  too  few.  The  proportion  of  births  in  England 
per  1,000  married  men  under  fifty-five  is  represented 
by  the  following  figures: — Upper  and  middle  class, 
119;  skilled  workmen,  153;  unskilled  workmen, 

213. 

We  are  not  arguing  here  in  support  of  any  thesis. 
We  have  not  the  facts  fully  before  us.  We  merely 
indicate  that  there  are  two  sides  to  the  question.  It 
may  be  that  the  period  after  a  terrible  war  is  a  time 
for  recuperating  and  not  for  further  reduction  of  the 
population.  Moreover,  not  marrying  at  all,  or  not 
marrying  till  late,  or  not  having  a  family  seems  on 
the  average  a  very  regrettable  policy,  both  biologically 


240  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

and  ethically.  But  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  say 
that  the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  within  limits  of  safety 
is  altogether  a  bad  sign.  The  following  considerations 
on  the  other  side  must  be  kept  in  view. 

The  diminished  birth-rate  may  tend  to  improve  the 
health  of  children  and  mothers.  It  may  tend  to  sub- 
stitute quality  for  quantity.  It  may  make  life  less 
anxious,  more  secure,  and  with  greater  possibilities  of 
fineness.  Associated  with  birth-control,  it  makes 
earlier  marriages  more  feasible.  The  control  of  the 
birth-rate  makes  for  the  independence  of  women  and 
increases  their  opportunities  of  self -development.  If 
the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  proceeds  more  or  less  uni- 
formly it  will  work  against  war,  which  is  partly  due 
to  expansive  population,  and  if  war  still  persists,  a 
restriction  of  numbers  will  keep  it  from  being  still 
more  terrible  than  now  in  its  wastage  of  human 
life. 

Havelock  Ellis  is  a  notable  champion  of  the  view 
that  "  the  chief  cause  of  the  superiority  of  a  highly 
civilised  state  over  lower  stages  of  civilisation  is  pre- 
cisely a  greater  degree  of  forethought  and  self-control 
in  marriage  and  child-bearing."  Birth-control  is  not 
1  race-suicide  '  but  race-saving.  "  The  expanding  na- 
tion has  always  been  a  menace  to  the  world  and  to 
itself.  The  arrest  of  the  falling  birth-rate  would  be 
the  arrest  of  all  civilisation  and  all  humanity." 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS  241 

BY   WHAT   MEANS? 

Many  wise  men  in  recent  years  have  said  that  they 
are  not  so  much  afraid  of  the  decline  of  the  birth- 
rate as  of  the  methods  by  which  it  is  effected.  In  old 
times  infanticide  was  practised  without  reproach.  In 
a  graveyard  at  Gela,  in  Sicily,  with  a  total  of  570 
burials,  there  are  233  of  exposed  infants.  Plato  and 
Aristotle  countenanced  abortion,  and  this  lingers  in 
many  English  towns  by  the  use  of  lead  preparations 
now  being  suppressed.  Now,  these  solutions  are 
surely  much  more  deplorable  than  modern  preventives 
or  contraceptives,  which  keep  a  new  life  from  begin- 
ning. 

In  a  recent  article  (Nation,  Oct.  2,  1915)  Dean 
Fremantle  says  that  rather  than  artificial  restriction 
he  would  see  continued  the  struggles  of  parents  of 
large  families,  from  which  he  says,  "  a  large  part  of 
the  moral  greatness  of  our  people  has  resulted  ".  But 
the  achievement  of  many  parents  in  rearing  large  and 
highly  successful  families  was  surely  due  to  a  moral 
fibre  already  present;  it  was  not  engendered  by  the 
struggle.  Moreover,  while  big  families  of  the  right 
sort  are  admirable  when  the  parents  are  sufficient  for 
these  things,  one  doubts  if  almost  anything  can  be 
put  against  the  misery  and  hopelessness  to  which  many 
good  women  have  been  reduced  by  too  rapid  succes- 
sion of  births.  There  is  considerable  impiety  in  the 


242  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

saying  that  whenever  the  Lord  sends  a  mouth,  he  will 
send  the  food  to  fill  it. 

In  an  open-minded  and  wise  article  on  the  Birth-rate 
in  a  recent  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  the 
Dean  of  St.  Paul's  points  out  firmly  that  the  "  Corn- 
stock  "  legislation  in  America  against  the  sale  and  use 
of  preventives  "  has  done  unmixed  harm  ",  by  terribly 
increasing  the  recourse  to  abortion.  Dean  Inge's  per- 
sonal opinion  is  that  high-minded  married  persons 
should  avoid  preventives  as  a  last  resource  in  the 
failure  of  self-restraint.  But  one  must  not  expect  the 
supernatural  from  ordinary  mankind.  Even  great 
restraint  and  great  conjugal  temperance  may  soon  be 
followed  by  too  many  babies.  But  one  agrees  at  one's 
best  with  the  Dean,  that  whatever  injures  the  feeling 
of  honour  with  which  St.  Paul  bids  us  regard  these 
intimacies  of  life,  whatever  tends  to  profane  or  de- 
grade wedded  love,  is  so  far  an  evil.  But  this  is 
emphatically  a  matter  in  which  every  man  and  woman 
must  judge  for  themselves,  and  must  refrain  from 
judging  others.  In  Holland  authorised  nurses  give 
instruction  to  working-women,  and  the  society  behind 
them  has  State  authority  and  support. 

WHAT  MOTIVES? 

Some  thoughtful  critics  of  our  modern  development 
have  said  that  what  fills  them  with  foreboding  in 


POPULATION  PROBLEMS          243 

regard  to  the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  is  not  the  fact 
itself,  nor  the  method  of  birth-control  employed,  but 
the  motive.  It  is  difficult  to  discover  motives.  Most 
of  our  motives  are  a  good  deal  mixed.  But  one  cannot 
help  feeling  what  was  well  expressed  in  a  remarkable 
article  in  the  Scotsman  some  years  ago,  "  Stand  Up, 
Ye  Dead,"  that  there  is  a  good  deal  of  selfishness  and 
poor-spiritedness  behind  the  empty  cradle  and  the 
celibate  club.  As  Mr.  W.  S.  Lilly  says:  it  is  well  that 
men  should  wish  to  warm  both  their  hands  before  the 
fire  of  life,  but  they  need  not  be  so  mortally  afraid 
of  burning  their  fingers.  But  it  would  be  a  gross  error 
to  suppose  that  the  motives  behind  the  control  of 
births  are  necessarily  selfish. 

Three  notes  in  conclusion,  (i)  We  should  recognise 
how  little  we  know  about  the  birth-rate,  its  changes 
and  its  possibilities  of  harmful  and  useful  control. 
Our  ignorance  is  immense.  But  we  must  not  shut  our 
eyes  and  drift.  We  must  command  our  course  with 
more  knowledge.  We  must  have  franker  medical  ad- 
vice. We  must  not  be  impatient  in  conclusions,  or  in 
conduct.  He  that  believeth  in  evolution  shall  not 
make  haste. 

(2)  We  must  view  the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  not 
only  personally  but  in  relation  to  national  welfare  and 
stability.  Better  40  millions  healthy  and  vigorous  and 
joyous,  than  60  millions  riddled  with  bad  health, 


244  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

weakness,  and  depression.  But  we  must  also  view  it 
internationally.  For  there  are  few  of  us  who  wish  to 
give  up  our  place  among  the  nations  or  to  see  cur  race 
dwindle  away  to  disappearance  as  did  that  of  ancient 
Greece. 

(3)  Lastly  we  must  not  look  at  things  too  bio- 
logically or  too  materialistically.  We  are  body-and- 
mind  creatures,  personalities,  and  the  greatest  thing 
in  human  life  is  love.  If  we  jettison  this  we  are  sacri- 
ficing one  of  the  treasures  that  make  our  voyage  worth 
while.  If  the  mode  of  life  and  thought  we  are  settling 
down  into  tends  to  materialistic  views  of  marriage  and 
having  children,  no  matter  what  we  secure,  we  are 
missing  the  substance  for  the  shadow.  We  must  not 
allow  the  word  artificial  to  be  a  bogie,  but  no  substi- 
tution of  mechanical  control  for  moral  control  can  ever 
be  regarded  with  entire  equanimity.  If  we  lose  the 
chivalry  and  tenderness  of  lovers,  the  joyousness  of 
the  Springtime  of  the  heart,  the  adventurousness  of 
early  marriage,  and  the  delight  of  having  children 
while  we  are  young  enough  to  sympathise  with  them, 
we  are  missing  the  fragrant  flowers  of  life. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN. 

§  i.  Cosmosphere,  Biosphere,  and  Sociosphere. — §  2.  Con- 
trol m  the  Domain  of  Things. — §  3.  Control  in  the 
Realm  of  Organisms. — §  4.  Control  of  Disease. — §  5. 
Control  of  Body  and  Mind. — §  6.  Social  Ideals:  Eu- 
genics, Eutechnics,  and  Eutopias. — §  7.  Selection  in 
Mankind. — §  8.  The  Dilemma  of  Civilisation. — §  9. 
The  Social  Heritage. — §  10.  Man's  Imperium  in 
Imperio. 

§  i.    Cosmosphere,  Biosphere,  and  Sociosphere. 

OUR  world  may  be  thought  of  as  three  spheres,  one 
within  the  other,  though  all  are  comprehended  in  the 
mind  of  Man,  the  measure  of  the  universe.  First, 
there  is  the  domain  of  things  in  general — the  Cos- 
mosphere:— water,  earth  and  air;  dewdrops,  stones, 
and  the  spacious  firmament  on  high;  matter  and  mo- 
tion, the  ether,  and  all  the  energies  within  the  limits 
of  the  inorganic.  It  is  the  domain  of  the  relatively 
unorganised,  though  there  is  some  organisation  in 
crystals  and  stellar  systems,  not  to  speak  of  man- 
made  machines;  but  it  is  begging  a  question  to  call  it 
inanimate.  The  modern  discoveries  of  the  internal 

245 


246  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

activities  of  things  show  us  the  inappropriateness  of 
the  word  '  inert ';  all  is  movement  and  flux;  there  is 
bustle  in  the  dust;  and  though  it  is  darkening  counsel 
to  speak  of  the  '  life '  of  crystals,  there  is  a  hurry- 
scurry  of  particles  in  the  heart  of  a  quartz  pebble. 
What  happens  every  day  in  the  domain  of  things  can 
be  described  for  practical  purposes  exhaustively  in 
terms  of  matter  and  motion.  The  laws  of  the  domain 
are  chemical  and  physical,  dynamical  and  mechanical. 
The  laws  that  Man  has  succeeded  in  formulating  must 
be  approaching  the  truth,  i.e.  correspondence  with 
reality,  for  they  can  be  used  as  a  safe  basis  for  pre- 
diction and  preparation.  The  fates  of  empires  are 
staked  on  them, — in  a  naval  battle,  for  instance. 

Secondly,  there  is  the  realm  of  organisms,  the  sphere 
of  plants  and  animals — the  Biosphere.  It  is  immersed 
in  the  domain  of  things  and  always  interacting  there- 
with. It  is  more  intricate  and  more  elusive  than  the 
non-living  world,  and  we  have  not — probably  cannot 
have — such  an  expert  knowledge  of  it.  No  doubt  it 
is  possible  to  give  a  chemical  and  physical  account  of 
the  measurable  activities  that  go  on  in  this  animate 
realm,  but  to  think  that  this  is  all  is  to  leave  Hamlet 
out  of  the  play.  The  outcome  of  the  chemico-physical 
analysis  is  not  an  intelligible  re-description  of  the  ac- 
tivities and  behaviour  of  living  creatures.  Even  when 
we  leave  '  mind '  out  of  account,  living  creatures  can- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  247 

not  be  described  adequately  or  exhaustively  in  terms 
of  matter  and  motion.  If  we  are  clever  enough  we 
can  account  mechanically  for  the  return  of  a  boom- 
erang to  the  thrower's  hand,  but  we  cannot  account 
mechanically  for  the  return  of  the  migratory  bird  to 
the  place  of  its  birth.  Moreover,  though  we  can  some- 
times make  a  secure  biological  prediction,  in  regard 
to  heredity  for  instance,  we  cannot  trust  to  living 
creatures  as  we  can,  let  us  say,  to  the  tides.  Animals 
are  often  very  reliable,  but  they  have  wills  of  their 
own,  and  beyond  a  certain  limit  "  they  cannot  be 
lippened  to  ",  as  Scots  folk  say.  The  "  indetermi- 
nateness"  of  a  dog  is  much  greater  than  that  of  a 
starfish. 

Thirdly,  there  is  the  Kingdom  of  Man — the  Socio- 
sphere.  It  is  separated  off  from  the  realm  of  organ- 
isms, because  Man  works  in  societies  or  societary 
forms,  because  Man  understands  and  purposes  at  a 
higher  level  than  any  animal,  and  because  Man  has 
to  an  unprecendented  degree  the  power  of  registering 
his  personal  and  racial  gains  outside  himself — in  books 
and  buildings,  in  traditions  and  institutions,  and  in 
art.  The  Kingdom  of  Man  is  a  realm  of  ends  in  a 
much  more  conscious  way  than  holds  among  animals. 
We  often  keep  an  end  of  a  rather  subtle  sort  for  years 
consciously  and  deliberately  before  us,  and  it  influ- 
ences the  deeper  currents  of  our  conduct. 


248  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

Bacon's  phrase,  the  Kingdom  of  Man,  is  here  used, 
however,  to  indicate  not  merely  human  society  and 
its  products,  but  also  that  part  of  Nature  (cosmo- 
sphere  and  biosphere)  which  man  subdues  to  his 
service  or  transforms  for  his  purposes.  Thus,  we  may 
think  of  the  Panama  Canal,  the  damming  of  the  Nile, 
the  Mont  Cenis  tunnel,  the  planting  of  a  great  forest, 
the  domestication  of  animals,  as  part  of  Man's  king- 
dom. For  purposes  of  understanding  man  takes  the 
whole  universe  for  his  province,  but  his  kingdom 
which  he  would  control,  in  which  he  would  in  some 
measure  express  himself,  has  a  less  ambitious 
range. 

Materialism  and  Biologism. — The  particular  classi- 
fication of  the  outer  world  which  any  one  adopts  does 
not  perhaps  matter  much — different  schemes  appeal  to 
different  minds — but  it  is  important  to  avoid  the  error 
of  false  simplicity.  One  may  get  a  good  deal  out  of 
a  horse  if  one  treats  him  as  an  engine,  and  he  must 
never  be  treated  in  a  manner  subversive  of  the  rea- 
sonable treatment  of  an  engine,  by  ignoring  the  law 
of  the  conservation  of  energy,  for  instance;  but  one 
does  not  get  the  best  out  of  a  horse  if  one  persists  in 
being  materialistic.  The  best  horsemen  treat  their 
horses  as  fellow-creatures;  see,  for  instance,  Roger 
Pocock's  The  Horse  (Murray,  1917).  Similarly,  one 
may  get  a  good  deal  out  of  a  boy  if  one  treats  him 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  249 

just  as  a  young  mammal,  and  he  must  never  be  treated 
in  a  manner  subversive  of  the  reasonable  treatment  of 
a  mammal,  by  ignoring  sex,  for  instance;  but  one  will 
not  get  the  best  out  of  a  boy  if  one  confines  oneself 
to  the  zoological  point  of  view.  A  biologism  is  just 
as  dangerous  as  a  materialism. 

§  2.    Control  in  the  Domain  of  Things. 

As  regards  the  conquest  and  control  of  the  domain 
of  things,  man's  aim  is  to  make  the  most  of  the  phys- 
ical universe,  with  the  minimum  waste  of  materials 
and  energy  and  life,  and  with  most  good  to  himself, 
considering  "  good  "  and  "  himself  "  not  too  narrowly. 
"  Real  gain,"  said  Sir  William  Ramsay,  "  real  progress 
consists  in  learning  how  better  to  employ  energy — how 
better  to  effect  its  transformation."  There  are,  of 
course,  other  gains  equally  real,  but  the  great  chemist 
we  have  quoted  was  speaking  from  the  matter  and 
motion  standpoint.  It  is  one  of  the  great  facts  about 
our  race — to  be  set  against  some  disappointing  fea- 
tures— that  every  year  increases  man's  mastery  of  the 
physical  forces.  He  taps  one  reservoir  after  another, 
and  slowly  learns  economy.  He  annihilates  distance 
with  his  deep  devices,  he  makes  the  ether  carry  his 
messages,  he  coins  wealth  out  of  the  thin  air,  he  jour- 
neys through  the  sky  and  beneath  the  waves  of  the 


25o  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

sea.  With  science  as  torch  Man  has  already  done 
great  things;  and  why  should  we  think  that  he  has 
more  than  begun  to  enter  into  his  kingdom?  As  re- 
gards the  domain  of  things,  every  year  adds  fresh  illus- 
trations to  the  saying  of  the  poet  Herbert,  "  Man  is 
one  world,  and  hath  another  to  attend  him."  It  is 
not,  however,  within  our  present  scope  to  follow  fur- 
ther what  we  have  illustrated  in  the  first  chapter  of 
this  book.  But  there  is  one  caution  that  the  biologist 
must  not  leave  unsaid.  No  one  can  suppose  that  all 
Man  does  in  the  field  of  physical  operations  is  equally 
commendable.  Within  the  physical  domain  itself 
there  is  the  criterion  that  the  exploitation  should  not 
waste  materials  or  energies;  and  that  criterion  has  not 
always  been  attended  to.  But  from  outside  the  domain 
comes  the  criterion  that  we  must  ask  how  the  physical 
operations  are  affecting  living  creatures  and  Man  him- 
self and  society;  and  that  criterion  has  not  always 
been  attended  to.  Almost  ideal  is  Man's  use  of  a  head 
of  water  to  generate  electricity,  by  which  in  turn  he 
captures  the  nitrogen  of  the  atmosphere,  with  the 
result  of  forming  fertilisers  which  increase  the  produce 
of  the  earth,  and  give  us  daily  bread.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  desolation  of  those  areas  to  which  the  ter- 
rible name  "  Black  Country  "  is  or  may  be  applied, 
shows  that  however  necessary  the  iron-works  are,  the 
exploitation  cannot  be  called  perfect.  Irrigation 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  251 

achievements  in  a  country  where  the  rain  previously 
went  to  waste  are  supremely  economical,  and,  so  to 
speak,  greatly  to  man's  credit.  But  what  of  gold- 
mining  where  every  man  working  underground  gradu- 
ally gets  his  lungs  infiltrated  with  the  fine  dust  and  is 
doomed  to  a  short  life  unless  he  can  change?  Man 
must  look  to  the  whole  cost  of  his  conquests  in  the 
domain  of  things. 

§  3.   Control  in  the  Realm  of  Organisms. 

As  regards  the  realm  of  organisms,  Man's  aim  is  to 
get  more  control  of  living  creatures  so  as  to  make 
his  own  position  more  secure,  progressive,  and  en- 
joyable. So  he  puts  a  check  on  the  multiplication  of 
poisonous  animals,  dangerous  animals,  destructive  ani- 
mals, disease  animals.  He  offers  a  farthing  a  head 
for  poisonous  snakes,  and  the  wily  Hindoo  breeds  them 
in  his  back  yard.  He  puts  a  check  on  the  multiplication 
of  poisonous  plants,  troublesome  weeds,  destructive 
plants,  and  disease  plants.  Contrariwise,  he  tries  to 
promote  the  increase  )f  animals  and  plants  that  are 
palatable,  profitable,  and  pleasant.  He  has  to  do  this 
with  scientific  caution  both  in  removing  and  in  adding. 
Let  us  briefly  illustrate  some  of  the  practical  recom- 
mendations which  experience  has  brought  into  prom- 
inence. 

Realisation  of  the  Web  of  Life. — If  Man  is  to  sue- 


252  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

ceed  in  the  control  of  the  realm  of  organisms,  he  must 
acquire  an  increasing  knowledge  of  the  old-established, 
subtly  adjusted  balance  of  nature  or  system  of  inter- 
relations, a  disturbance  of  which  is  often  followed  by 
portentous  results.  The  consequences  of  the  careless 
introduction  of  animals  into  a  new  habitat,  where  they 
multiply  unchecked,  is  familiar  in  connection  with  the 
rabbits  introduced  into  Australia  and  the  sparrows 
introduced  into  the  United  States.  Contrariwise,  the 
ruthless  killing  off  of  birds  and  beasts  of  prey  has 
been  followed  by  plagues  of  voles,  and  the  de- 
struction of  white  herons  has  been  followed  by 
great  losses  in  the  rice-fields  of  the  East.  Destroy- 
ing squirrels  may  mean  an  over-multiplication  of  wood- 
pigeons,  which  are  extremely  destructive  to  the 
crops.  What  is  needed  at  every  turn  is  more 
science. 

Let  us  take  a  diagrammatic  illustration.  There  was 
some  years  ago  a  decrease  in  the  yield  of  fish  from 
certain  Australian  rivers  and  estuaries.  A  hasty  infer- 
ence put  the  blame  on  cormorants,  which  are  well 
known  to  be  greedy  fish-eaters.  So  the  edict  went 
forth  for  a  massacre  of  cormorants,  and  the  edict  was 
obeyed.  But  the  extreme  thinning  of  the  cormorants 
did  not  result  in  any  increase  of  food-fishes,  though 
it  was  persisted  in  for  years.  Then,  at  last,  when  an 
appeal  was  made  to  scientific  knowledge,  it  was  dis- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  253 

covered  that  the  cormorants  fed  in  great  part  on  the 
sand-eels  and  crabs  which  devoured  the  fry  of  the 
food-fishes. 

To  destroy  rats  in  Jamaica  they  imported  the  mon- 
goose from  the  Old  World,  and  for  a  time  things  went 
well.  But  when  the  mongoose  had  finished  with  the 
rats,  it  had  become  many  mongooses,  and  these  turned 
their  attention  to  the  poultry.  Thence  they  passed  to 
ground-birds  and  lizards  and  snakes.  There  was  no 
mourning  over  the  loss  of  snakes,  but  the  lizards  and 
ground-birds  were  missed.  For  injurious  insects  and 
ticks  began  to  multiply  exceedingly,  and  some  people 
said  they  would  rather  have  the  rats  back  again  and 
the  mongooses  safely  home.  The  last  part  of  the  story 
is  that  the  insects  and  the  ticks  are  making  life  a 
burden  to  the  mongooses.  It  will  right  itself,  but  much 
is  always  lost  in  the  process. 

Wastage  and  Economy  of  Exploitation. — It  is  very 
interesting  to  contrast  the  old  ways  of  hunting  and 
fishing,  shepherding  and  farming  with  those  of  to-day; 
and  one  fact  stands  out — that  modern  methods  are  or 
can  be  made  far  more  economical  in  immediate  re- 
sult. Take  in  illustration  a  very  ancient  and  very 
widespread  mode  of  fishing — still  practised  in  Aus- 
tralia, for  instance — that  of  throwing  into  the  water 
quantities  of  certain  poisonous  plants.  The  fish  are 
poisoned  and  float  up  to  the  surface  where  they  are 


254  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

caught  dying  or  dead.  It  is  a  diagram  of  wasteful- 
ness. Young  are  killed  as  well  as  old;  a  whole  lagoon 
may  be  cleared  out;  the  supplies  obtained  are  far  in 
excess  of  demand.  What  a  contrast  this  wastefulness 
is  to  the  simple  conservative  expedient  of  tumbling 
cartloads  of  bracken  into  a  fresh-water  loch,  with  the 
result  that  the  supply  in  succeeding  years  is  greatly 
increased.  The  decaying  bracken,  worked  on  by  bac- 
teria, affords  food  for  Infusorians,  which  are  devoured 
by  minute  crustaceans,  which  form  the  food  of  the 
trout,  which  are  in  turn  reincarnated  in  man.  Most 
of  us  will  prefer  this  way  of  eating  bracken  to  that 
counselled  by  some  frugal  minds  who  recommend 
bracken-top  asparagus  and  bracken-root  fritters.  The 
indirect  way  of  eating  bracken  is  the  more  scientific. 
To  economists  in  the  days  of  Malthus  the  danger  of 
human  population  outrunning  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence was  a  dark  cloud;  it  would  not  have  seemed  so 
dark  if  they  had  known  what  we  know  of  Man's 
power  of  multiplying  loaves  and  fishes,  e.g.  by  rearing 
more  prolific  strains  of  cereals  or  by  artificial  stimula- 
tion of  the  resources  of  the  sea.  It  is  not  indeed  to  be 
supposed  that  there  is  not  much  wastefulness  in  mod- 
ern methods  of  exploitation, — in  trawling,  for  instance, 
— but  the  point  is  that  we  know  more  or  less  clearly 
when  we  are  wasteful,  that  we  can  stop  it  when  we 
choose,  and  that  we  can  increase  our  food-supply 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  255 

enormously  whenever  we  please  to  put  more  brains, 
i.e.  more  science,  into  the  problem. 

It  is  easy  to  exhaust  mussel-beds  unless  they  are 
used  in  a  series,  giving  each  a  long  rest  in  turn;  it  is 
easy  to  exhaust  a  field  unless  there  be  rotation  of 
crops;  it  is  easy  to  spoil  a  countryside  unless  there  are 
five  seedlings  planted  for  every  good  tree  cut  down; 
but  this  is  the  mere  alphabet  of  science. 

The  secret  of  domesticating  animals  seems  to  have 
been  lost,  or  perhaps  the  number  of  domesticable  ani- 
mals is  very  small;  but  there  are  surely  enormous  pos- 
sibilities of  new  cultivated  plants. 

§  4.   Control  of  Disease. 

The  great  steps  that  Man  has  taken  in  the  control 
of  things  have  been  very  largely  due  to  scientific  genius. 
"If  necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention,  curiosity  is 
almost  certainly  its  father"  (A.  D.  Darbishire:  A 
New  Biology.  Cassell,  1917).  The  taking  advantage 
of  the  discoveries  of  Science  has  been  prompted  by  the 
widespread  desire  for  '  wealth ',  security,  comfort, 
and  pleasure.  Similarly,  the  great  steps  that  Man  has 
taken,  especially  since  Pasteur's  day,  in  the  control  of 
disease,  have  been  largely  due  to  sheer  scientific  inquisi- 
tiveness,  but  they  have  been  prompted  also  by  Man's 
sympathy  with  and  dislike  of  suffering.  Man's 
shrinking  from  disease  or  desire  to  be  rid  of  it  prob- 


256  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

ably  still  supplies  a  stronger  motive  than  his  ambition 
to  be  positively  healthy. 

Let  us  recall  a  few  instances  of  Man's  control  of 
disease.  The  story  of  the  mastery  of  malaria,  for 
instance,  is  like  an  illumined  picture,  and  we  cannot 
help  wondering  that  it  does  not  move  men  more. 
Laveran  discovers  the  minute  animal  that  causes  the 
mysterious  disease.  Major  Ross  discovers  that  its 
early  stages  are  passed  inside  the  spot-winged  gnat  or 
mosquito  (Anopheles).  He  goes  on  to  show  that  if 
we  can  avoid  being  bitten  by  a  mosquito  we  may  live 
without  malaria  in  the  midst  of  a  malaria-rife  swamp; 
that  if  we  can  keep  the  mosquito  from  sucking  the 
blood  of  malarial  patients  we  can  greatly  lessen  the 
disease;  and  that  a  film  of  paraffin  on  the  pools  in 
which  the  larval  mosquitos  develop  will  abolish  the 
disease  from  the  area. 

Another  very  instructive  case  concerns  the  disease 
known  as  bilharziasis.  It  must  be  explained,  first  of 
all,  that  a  common  disease  in  sheep,  called  liver-rot, 
is  due  to  a  fluke-worm  (Distomum  hepaticum)  which 
spends  the  early  part  of  its  life  in  a  tiny  fresh-water 
snail  (Lymnccus  truncatulus) .  The  more  of  these 
snails  that  wagtails  and  lapwings  eat,  the  less  liver- 
rot  in  sheep.  Now,  in  warm  countries,  such  as  Egypt, 
there  is  a  distantly  related  worm,  called  Bilharzia, 
which  occurs  in  man.  It  has  the  peculiarity,  shared  by 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  257 

the  formidable  hookworm,  of  being  able  to  enter  man 
as  a  microscopic  larva  by  boring  right  through  the 
skin.  It  causes  very  serious  and  painful  disease  and 
occurs  in  a  large  fraction  of  the  total  population 
of  Lower  Egypt,  and  in  every  third  child  born  in 
Cairo.  Its  life-history,  which  involves  several  kinds 
of  fresh-water  snail,  e.g.  Melania  and  Bulinus,  has 
been  revealed  by  Dr.  Leiper's  careful  tracking,  so 
thoroughly  revealed  that  he  has  been  able  to  protect 
all  who  are  willing  to  take  a  few  simple  precautions. 
Thus,  the  free-swimming  larva  cannot  live  for  more 
than  thirty-six  hours  in  drawn  water.  Eventually,  by 
getting  rid  of  the  snails  in  the  canals  and  the  like, 
man  will  get  finally  rid  of  the  disease.  This  illustrates 
the  control  of  life. 

§  6.   Social  Ideals:  Eugenics,  Eutechnics,  Eutopias. 

When  we  consider  the  social  sphere,  the  part  of  the 
Kingdom  which  is  most  distinctively  Man's  own,  we 
have  cause  to  be  at  once  proud  and  ashamed.  There 
is  magnificence  cheek  by  jowl  with  misery,  and  the 
sublime  is  jostled  by  the  sordid.  What  literature, 
what  art,  what  science!  And  yet,  what  trash,  what 
ugliness,  what  ignorance!  At  times  it  seems  as  if 
Man  as  organism  lagged  behind  the  externally  enreg- 
istered  gains  of  evolution,  as  if  the  citizen  were  not 
worthy  of  the  city.  At  other  times  it  seems  as  if  Man 


258  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

handicapped  himself  with  external  impediments,  as  if 
the  machinery  he  fashioned  became  too  strong  for 
him,  as  if  the  slum  got  the  better  of  the  citizen.  Yet 
those  are  wisest  who  keep  brave  hearts.  "  What  is 
Man?  ,"  said  the  chaplain,  quoting  the  Psalmist  to 
Richard  Yea-and-Nay.  "  What  is  Man  not?  "  thun- 
dered back  the  King.  And  that  is  the  right  spirit.1 

The  three  great  objective  ideals  of  mankind  are: 
Eugenics,  the  improvement  of  the  human  breed; 
Eutechnics,  the  improvement  of  occupations  and  ac- 
tivities; and  Eutopias,  the  improvement  of  surround- 
ings. These  correspond  to  the  three  facts — Folk, 
Work,  Place;  Organism,  Function,  Environment;  Le 
Play's  Famille,  Travail,  Lieu. 

Eugenics  was  defined  by  Sir  Francis  Gal  ton  as  "  the 
study  of  agencies  under  social  control  that  may  im- 
prove or  impair  the  racial  qualities  of  future  genera- 
tions, either  physically  or  mentally ".  It  is  often 
spoken  of  with  an  indulgent  smile,  as  if  it  was  an 
amiable  weakness  to  be  interested  in  an  ideal  which 
yielded  the  Hebrew  prophets  and  is  an  ancient  art  in 
China.  There  is  no  difficulty  in  vindicating  the  ideal; 
the  difficulty  is  in  regard  to  practicable  Eugenics.  We 
cannot  here  do  more  than  make  a  few  suggestions: — 

(i)  While  men  and  women  cannot  select  their 
parents,  they  do  to  some  extent  select  their  partners 
in  life,  and  in  this  subtle  process  it  is  possible  that 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  259 

an  enthusiasm  for  health  in  the  widest  and  highest 
sense  may  have  an  influence  in  a  eugenic  direction. 

(2)  If  men  and  women  who  are  handicapped  by 
serious  constitutional  unsoundness  permit  themselves 
to  marry,  they  should  not  permit  themselves  to  be 
parents.    No  one  can  contemplate  without  grave  regret 
the  spoiling  of  more  or  less  good  stock  by  the  intro- 
duction of  defects  like  deaf-mutism,  or  predispositions 
to  well-defined  mental  instability,  or  to  certain  forms 
of  diabetes  and  epilepsy.     But  it  is  a  little  suspicious 
that  it  is  always  the  other  fellow,  not  oneself,  that  one 
thinks  of  as  not  a  good  parent!     Prof.  G.  H.  Parker 
expresses  the  wholesome  dread  that  people  have  of 
inquisitions — scientific  or  otherwise.    "  My  neighbours 
are  charitably  inclined,  but  some  of  them,  I  am  sure, 
would  give  what  seemed  to  them  good  reasons  for  not 
having  my  particular  personality  repeated  in  the  fu- 
ture, and  yet,  with  all  due  respect  to  the  welfare  of 
society,  I  confess  to  a  slight  measure  of  feeling  that 
I  be  allowed  some  individual  freedom  in  this  matter." 
If  there  is  to  be  a  marriage  inquisition,  one  would  like 
to  stipulate  for  a  peripatetic,  non-local  tribunal,  on 
which  the  family  physician  might  be  an  assessor,  and 
for  a  court  of  appeal  at  least. 

(3)  For  natural  selection  from  which  man  struggles 
away  there  is  need  to  substitute  rational  and  social 
selection.    But  it  does  not  follow  that  all  the  modes 


260  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

of  this  deliberate  selection  are  for  the  good  of  society 
or  the  race,  or  are  wholly  in  that  direction.  It  is  often 
suggested  that  obviously  undesirable  types  who  have 
fallen  back  upon  the  community  for  support  should 
be  prevented  from  reproducing  their  kind.  But  limits 
to  repression  and  segregation  will  be  found  in  the  pre- 
vailing social  sentiments  of  freedom  and  solidarity,  and 
it  has  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  some  measure  society 
may  be  itself  responsible  for  the  making  of  the  failures 
alluded  to,  so  that  we  are  bound  to  do  something  to 
prevent  their  production  as  well  as  their  reproduc- 
tion! 

(4)  It  is  often  suggested  that  there  should  be  some 
deliberate  return  to  "  the  purgation  of  the  State " 
which  Sparta  to  some  extent  practised  and  Plato  ap- 
proved. It  has  been  recommended  that  weakly  in- 
fants, whose  life  must  be  more  or  less  miserable, 
should  be  allowed  to  pass  away  in  their  sleep.  This 
may  be  justifiable  in  certain  very  clear  cases,  but  it  is 
open  to  serious  objections: — (a)  that  many  weaklings 
have  been  the  makers  and  shakers  of  the  world,  (b) 
that  the  Spartan  proposals  outrun  our  present  secure 
knowledge,  (c)  that  their  operation  would  remove  the 
results  of  evil  without  touching  the  causes,  and  (d) 
that  we  cannot  go  far  in  social  surgery  without  out- 
raging social  sentiment  in  its  finest  expressions  and 
shaking  the  foundations  of  our  modern  system. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  261 

(5)  Given  an  understanding  of  natural  inheritance 
and  the  influence  of  nurture,  given  a  pride  of  race  and 
a  pride  in  having  a  vigorous  family,  given  an  enthu- 
siasm  for  health,   many   more  positive   methods   ot 
c  improving   the   breed '   will   occur.     A   community 
which  realises  the  racial  value  of  fine  types,  of  men, 
let   us   say,   with   high   artistic   gifts    and    vigorous 
physique,  will  in  its  criticised  expenditure  tend  to  se- 
cure their  continuance.    The  applications  of  this  eco- 
nomic idea  of  "  the  criticism  of  consumption "  are 
endless  and  far-reaching.    All  expenditure  which  pro- 
motes  unhealthy   rather    than    healthy    occupations, 
which   helps   to   multiply   undesirable   types,   which 
makes  for  sweated  labour  and  slums  rather  than  for 
well-paid  work  and  gardens,  is  necessarily  dysgenic 
and  not  eugenic. 

(6)  There  is  hopefulness  also  in  a  practical  criti- 
cism of  those  processes  which  at  present  thin  the  ranks 
of  mankind  to  little  or  no  purpose.     Thus,  it  is  certain 
that  many  microbic  diseases  are  not  discriminatively 
selective,  but  effect  only  a  wasteful  thinning  of  the 
population. 

(7)  Much  betterment  may  be  looked  for  from  a 
patient  persistence  in  education — if  only  that  could  be 
readjusted  to  modern  conditions  and  informed  with 
sound  psychology.     Apart  from  mere  discipline,   it 
may  be  said  that  there  are  three  main  l  subjects  '  in 


262  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

education: — (a)  the  history  of  our  race,  (b)  the  world 
in  which  we  live,  and  (c)  the  conditions  of  health, 
happiness,  and  effective  work.  Even  an  optimist  must 
find  it  hard  to  maintain  that  our  present-day  methods 
of  education  are  gripping  in  any  one  of  these  three 
fundamental  subjects.  When  improved  methods  begin 
to  grip,  eugenics  will  become  a  dominant  social 
ideal. 

As  to  Eutechnics,  there  is  a  growing  sense  of  the 
fact  that  even  from  the  point  of  view  of  maximum 
production  it  does  not  pay  to  treat  workers  as  if  they 
were  mere  machines,  and  much  of  the  disgrace  of  the 
occupational  conditions  of  the  Victorian  period  has 
been  wiped  out.  As  to  Eutopias,  much  has  been  done 
in  the  way  of  removing  utterly  inhuman  surroundings, 
but  there  is  little  reduction  in  the  supply  of  materials 
for  a  disgraceful  scrap-heap;  and  compared  with, 
say,  Japan  of  yesterday,  English-speaking  peoples 
do  little  towards  securing  what  is  positively  beau- 
tiful. 

A  good  sign  is  the  spread  of  the  conviction  that 
there  is  no  one  line  of  betterment, — that  all  secure 
biological  progress  must  be  along  three  lines,  and  must 
be  supplemented  by  progress  in  social  organisation  and 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  Spirit.  Vigour  is  a  eugenic 
ideal,  but  a  vigorous  serf  is  not  a  human  ideal,  nor  is 
vigour  in  a  slum.  A  beautiful  countryside  or  a  beau- 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  263 

tiful  city  is  a  eutopian  ideal,  but  it  is  not  a  human 
ideal  if  the  people  are  dull  and  joyless,  or  if  their 
work  is  unrelieved  toil.  Wholesome  occupation  is  a 
eutechnic  ideal,  but  it  fails  of  human  completeness 
unless  the  workers  have  vigorous  health  and  pleasant 
houses  to  dwell  in.  We  cannot  be  equally  interested 
in  all  three  kinds  of  ameloriation,  but  we  have  ceased 
to  disparage  our  neighbour's  enthusiasm  because  it  is 
not  ours. 

Science  as  Torch. — We  must  pause  at  this  point  to 
re-emphasise  the  idea  that  the  hopefulness  of  the  mod- 
ern vision  of  the  old  ideals  to  which  we  have  been 
referring  lies  in  a  slowly  growing  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  Science  as  torch.  If  Man  is  to  win  his  king- 
dom, it  must  be  in  part  by  putting  more  brains  into 
the  campaign.  By  brains  we  here  mean  primarily 
scientific  control — that  is  to  say,  control  based  on 
knowledge — verifiable  and  communicable  knowledge — 
gained  from  actual  experience  of  the  things,  the  forces, 
the  lives,  or  the  societies  to  be  controlled.  Science  is 
truly  a  crystallised  systematisation  of  observed  se- 
quences— ("  If  this,  then  that ")  like  Newton's 
Principia;  but  it  is  more.  It  is  a  living  thing, 
like  Philosophy;  it  is  a  life. 

The  common  phrase  "  a  knowledge  of  science  "  be- 
trays a  misunderstanding.  There  are,  of  course,  fun- 
damental facts  and  laws  to  be  mastered,  and  they 


264  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

become  part  and  parcel  of  the  expert, — the  permanent 
furniture  of  his  mind;  but  beyond  a  certain  limit  of 
convenience  no  wise  man  dreams  of  increasing  this 
furniture  except  at  a  particular  time  for  a  particular 
purpose.  The  root  of  the  matter  is  a  habit  of  mind 
which  insists  on  getting  at  the  facts  in  regard  to  any 
particular  problem,  which  knows  the  methods  of  get- 
ting at  the  facts,  which  has  a  high  standard  of  ac- 
curacy, which  is  disciplined  to  criticise  inferences  from 
facts  and  is  alert  to  detect  clues.  This  type  of  mind 
is  in  its  finest  expression  rare,  but  in  its  serviceable 
expression  not  uncommon,  and  on  its  utilisation  sur- 
vival largely  depends. 

No  one  need  suppose  that  we  are  even  for  a  moment 
forgetting  that  social  progress  depends  in  part  on  feel- 
ings of  kinship,  on  generous  good-will,  and  on  the 
sentiment  of  solidarity,  so  characteristic  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  We  are  not  for  a  moment  forgetting  the 
impetus  that  may  be  given  to  any  good  cause  by  social 
organisations  sufficiently  resolute  ethically  (as  in  re- 
gard to  slavery),  or  sufficiently  enthusiastic  (as  in 
regard  to  pacificism  and  women's  suffrage),  or  suf- 
ficiently determined  on  lines  of  self-interest  (as  in  the 
case  of  trade-unions).  But  there  are  many  problems 
which  only  Science  can  solve.  We  need  more  know- 
ledge and  more  use  of  the  knowledge  we  have.  Know- 
ledge is  foresight,  and  foresight  is  power. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN          265 

§  7.   Selection  in  Mankind.    s 

The  Biological  Theory  of  Selection. — The  method 
of  evolution  which  a  study  of  living  creatures  reveals 
is  a  method  of  trial  and  error,  the  sifting  of  organic 
experiments.  It  is  called  the  natural  selection  of 
variations.  Organisms  are  characteristically  change- 
ful from  generation  to  generation.  Some  of  these 
changes  are  advantageous  and  give  their  possessors  a 
better  chance  in  life  than  their  neighbours  have.  They 
have  '  survival  value '.  Others  are  positively  disad- 
vantageous and  handicap  their  possessors.  The  theory 
of  natural  selection  is  centred  in  the  fact  that  the  con- 
ditions of  life  are  such  that  there  is  a  continuous 
sifting  of  the  novelties  that  crop  up.  The  variants 
with  advantageous  variations  tend  to  form  the  sur- 
viving type;  those  with  disadvantageous  variations 
tend  to  be  eliminated.  The  result  is  what  Darwin 
described  as  "  the  preservation  during  the  battle  of 
life  of  varieties  which  possess  any  advantage  of  struc- 
ture, constitution,  or  instinct ". 

We  have  already  referred  to  an  interesting  calcula- 
tion, which  we  owe  to  Professor  Punnett,  that  if  in  a 
population  of  10,000  animals  in  a  district  there  are 
10  with  an  advantageous  novelty  that  gives  them  5 
per  cent,  of  a  better  chance  than  their  neighbours, 
then,  if  sifting  goes  on  persistently  and  consistently, 


266  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

the  new  departures  will  represent  the  species  in  a  hun- 
dred generations.  The  process  works  on  the  whole 
automatically,  but  it  is  more  than  mechanical,  since 
we  cannot  give  a  mechanical  account  of  variation  and 
heredity,  and  since  organisms  often  take  a  hand  in 
their  own  evolution — for  instance,  in  selecting  or 
changing  their  surroundings. 

There  is  an  overlooked  aspect  of  Nature's  sifting 
which  is  of  great  interest  to  man.  In  the  course  of 
ages  of  evolution  living  creatures  enter  into  complex 
relations  with  one  another,  they  form  a  web  of  life, 
they  establish  a  system  of  linkages.  Thus,  it  was  a 
great  step  when  flowers  and  insects  got  linked  up 
together.  There  is  thus  an  external  registration  of  steps 
of  progress,  and  this  forms  part  of  the  sieve  by  which 
future  new  departures  are  sifted.  It  seems  likely  that 
we  have  here  one  of  the  reasons  why  there  has  been 
persistent  advance  in  evolution,  why  slipping  down  the 
rungs  of  the  ladder  is  relatively  rare.  The  established 
system  of  inter-relations  has  often  a  progressive  influ- 
ence; when  the  inter-relation  is  parasitism  the  influ- 
ence is  retrogressive. 

Selection  in  Mankind. — In  the  early  days  Man  was 
very  thoroughly  in  the  sieve  of  Natural  Selection  and 
also  in  the  grip  of  Natural  Forces  which  destroyed 
indiscriminately  without  sifting.  The  serpent  bit  his 
heel,  the  poisonous  thorns  cut  his  skin,  the  beasts  of 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  267 

prey  devoured  him,  the  floods  drowned  him.  But  as 
age  succeeded  age  and  man's  brain  grew,  his  mastery 
of  Nature  increased.  He  cared  less  and  less  for  what 
serpent  or  thorn,  wild  beast  or  flood  could  do;  his 
struggle  for  existence  changed  in  tone  and  colour. 
Civilisation  has  meant  in  part  a  throwing  off  of  the 
yoke  of  Natural  Selection.  Even  famine  and  pesti- 
lence can  be  controlled. 

We  have  recalled  the  modern  achievements  by 
which  diseases  like  smallpox,  diphtheria,  typhoid  fever, 
malaria,  and  others  have  been  conquered.  Why  has 
Man  with  magnificent  patience  persisted  in  this  cam- 
paign against  disease?  Partly,  of  course,  because  of 
self-preservative  instincts,  because  he  is  a  sympathetic 
being,  because  he  does  not  like  to  be  beaten,  but  partly 
also  because  he  discerned  that  many  of  the  diseases 
that  beset  him  are  not  sifting  agencies,  but  indis- 
criminate in  their  operation,  as  in  the  case  of  those 
mentioned  above.  Sifting  is  hard  to  bear,  but  thinning 
without  sifting  is  hideously  wasteful.  In  the  language 
of  one  of  Man's  familiar  ideals,  "  it  is  not  good  busi- 
ness." 

There  is  evidence  of  some  natural  selection  still  in 
progress  in  mankind — probably  in  the  case  of  phthisis 
— but  on  the  whole,  as  Prof.  Karl  Pearson  says,  "  Con- 
sciously, or  unconsciously,  we  have  suspended  the 
racial  purgation  maintained  in  less  developed  com- 


268  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

munities  by  natural  selection ".  Without  weapons 
save  his  wits,  without  armour  save  his  mutual  aid, 
primitive  man  was  Nature's  rebellious  child,  and  in 
later  days  of  fine  equipment  he  has  continued  his 
insurgence,  as  Sir  Ray  Lankester  puts  it,  hurling  back 
against  Nature's  sentence  "  You  must  die!  "  the  virile 
challenge:  "Nay,  but  I  will  live." 

In  his  magnificent  lecture  "  The  Kingdom  of  Man  " 
(1907),  Sir  Ray  Lankester  points  out  how  Man  tran- 
scends Nature  by  insisting  not  only  on  surviving,  but  in 
surviving  along  a  line  that  pleases  himself.  "  The 
standard  raised  by  the  rebel  man  is  not  that  of  '  fit- 
ness '  to  the  conditions  proffered  by  extra-human  na- 
ture, but  is  one  of  an  ideal  comfort,  prosperity,  and 
conscious  joy  in  life — imposed  by  the  will  of  man  and 
involving  a  control  and  in  important  respects  a  sub- 
version of  what  were  Nature's  methods  of  dealing  with 
life  before  she  had  produced  her  insurgent  son." 

§  8.    The  Dilemma  of  Civilisation. 

One  of  the  constantly  recurrent  thoughts  in  the 
mind  of  the  biologist  is  the  contrast  between  wild  ani- 
mals and  mankind.  Among  wild  animals  disease  does 
not  grip,  healthfulness  is  the  rule,  parasites  are  rarely 
troublesome,  senility  is  unknown:  among  men  disease 
is  rife,  healthfulness  has  to  be  striven  for,  parasites 
are  frequently  fatal,  senility  is  common.  Moreover, 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  269 

most  wild  animals  show  what  we  admire  as  exceptional 
in  civilised  mankind,  an  all-round  fitness,  a  buoyant 
self-mastery,  an  abandon  of  vigour,  an  absence  of 
fatigue,  a  freedom  from  worry,  and  an  exemption  from 
'  bad  habits  '.  Walt  Whitman  felt  the  contrast  keenly. 

Perhaps  this  aspect  of  the  contrast  between  Man 
and  animals,  which  we  may  emphasise  without  losing 
any  grip  of  the  fact  that  he  is  nevertheless  "  crowned 
with  glory  and  honour  ",  is  the  biological  equivalent  of 
what  theologians  call  "  the  Fall ".  Why  is  Man  so 
extraordinarily  shackled  by  disharmony,  lack  of  con- 
trol, disease,  bad  habits,  unhappiness?  Transcendental 
answers  have  been  given  to  this  question,  let  us  try 
to  discover  the  biological  answers. 

(i)  Just  as  moral  evil  is  the  tax  on  moral  freedom, 
and  instability  the  penalty  of  genius,  so  the  constitu- 
tional diseases  of  mankind  express  to  some  extent  the 
seamy  side  of  variability.  For  constitutional  diseases 
are  just  types  of  metabolism  which  are  a  little  out  of 
place,  out  of  time,  and  out  of  tune.  A  disease  may 
be  a  new  departure  that  has  gone  a  little  too  far;  it 
may  be  a  slipping  down  the  ladder  of  evolution  to  an 
old-fashioned  way  of  doing  things.  The  hideous 
subtlety  of  disease  and  the  trail  of  misery  that  it  in- 
volves must  often  blot  out  the  sun,  but  from  a  detached 
biological  view-point  disease  cannot  be  regarded  as 
unintelligible  or  portentous. 


270  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

(2)  Man's  intelligence  has  made  it  possible  for  him 
to  operate  on  the  outer  world  in  a  unique  way,  and 
this  has  led  to  much  artificiality  of  surroundings  and 
functions,  of  food  and  drink.    His  nurture  has  become 
extraordinarily  subtle  and  divergent  from  that  of  ani- 
mals.   Thus  his  body  is  exposed  to  multitudinous  as- 
saults from  without  and  from  within  which  have  to 
be  met,  and  are  not  always  met  successfully.    It  must 
be  understood  that  some  bodily  disturbances,  such  as 
inflammation,  which  are  popularly  ranked  under  the 
heading  of  disease,  represent  the  body's  best  endeavour 
to  deal  with  intruding  microbes,  irritants,  or  poisons. 

(3)  Intelligence  and  instinct  are  usually  developed 
in  inverse  ratio.    The  ant  with  its  rich  endowment  of 
inborn  capacities  for  instinctive  behaviour  does  not 
seem  to  have  much  intelligence.    Man  with  his  rich 
endowment  of  intelligence  has  relatively  few  instincts, 
and  these  are  mostly  of  a  generalised  type.    Thus  he 
is  peculiarly  liable  to  stumble.    He  has,  for  instance, 
very  little  resting  instinct,  very  little  awareness  of 
when  he  is  overtaxing  his  strength.    It  is  intelligently 
rather  than  instinctively  that  he  has  come  to  under- 
stand that  insomnia  and  pain  are  danger-signals.    Hu- 
man instincts  in  regard  to  sex  are  very  vague. 

(4)  But  perhaps  the  biggest  reason  of  all  is  what 
is  often  called  "  the  dilemma  of  civilisation  ".     In  a 
magnificent  way  Man  has  rebelled  against  Nature's 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  271 

regime;  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  he  has  not  yet 
substituted  for  Natural  Selection  an  adequately  effec- 
tive rational  and  social  selection.  Thus  an  oppor- 
tunity is  offered  for  deterioration  and  disintegration. 
Hence  the  dilemma  of  civilisation  so  well  stated  by 
Herbert  Spencer:  "The  law  that  each  creature  shall 
take  the  benefits  and  the  evils  of  its  own  nature  has 
been  the  law  under  which  life  has  evolved  thus  far. 
Any  arrangements  which,  in  a  considerable  degree,  pre- 
vent superiority  from  profiting  by  the  rewards  of  su- 
periority, or  shield  inferiority  from  the  evils  it  entails 
— any  arrangements  which  tend  to  make  it  as  well  to 
be  inferior  as  to  be  superior,  are  arrangements  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  the  progress  of  organisation  and 
the  reaching  of  a  higher  life." 

What  is  to  be  done?  (a)  In  face  of  this  dilemma 
some  say:  "  Interfere  less  with  life-saving  devices." 
"  The  undesirables  have  made  their  bed,  let  them  lie 
on  it."  And  probably  some  people  are,  what  they  are 
often  told  they  are,  "  too  kind  ".  It  is  difficult  to  be 
enthusiastic  about  the  marriage  of  deaf-mutes,  and  the 
evils  of  indiscriminate  charity  are  well  known.  Yet 
we  are  solidary  with  our  whole  society  and  more  or 
less  responsible;  we  cannot  reverse  our  tactics;  we 
cannot  outrage  social  sentiment.  The  order  of  the  day 
is:  Save  life  wherever  possible.  Moreover,  as  we  have 
seen,  not  a  few  of  man's  interferences  are  with  indis- 


272  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

criminate  thinning,  which  is  not  sifting,  with  agencies 
like  typhoid  which  remove  the  fit  as  well  as  the  unfit. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  good  common-sense  in  the 
advice  that  coddling  of  the  waster  may  mean  cruelty 
to  the  worthy. 

(b)  Another  suggestion  is  made  by  men  of  sterner 
stuff,  who  advise  nipping  diseased  buds  and  pruning 
off  deleterious  twigs — a  scientifically  conducted  infan- 
ticide, in  short.    Now,  it  is  possible  that  the  time  will 
come  when  the  noblest  social  sentiment  and  a  mature 
science  will  agree  that  this  or  that  kind  of  bud,  e.g. 
certain  well-understood  types  of  defectives,  should  not 
be  allowed  to  open,  but  the  time  is  not  quite  yet.    It 
is  easy  to  picture  the  life  of  misery  that  they  have 
even  under  the  humanest  institutional  treatment,  and 
the  sadness  with  which  they  fill  the  lives  of  their  rela- 
tives; but  we  do  not  know  enough  to  nip  their  buds. 
It  is  so  easy  to  make  mistakes.    We  must  remember 
the  weaklings  who  have  been  among  the  movers  and 
shakers  of  the  world.    We  cannot  surgically  get  rid  of 
our  liabilities;    the  idea  makes   the   foundations  of 
society  tremble. 

(c)  A  third  suggestion  is  less  drastic;  it  aims  pri- 
marily at  preventing  multiplication  either  by  sterilisa- 
tion or  by  segregation.    The  suggestion  of  this  always 
arouses  the  worthy  champions  of  "  the  liberty  of  the 
subject ",  but  the  phrase  is  a  mockery  when  applied 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  273 

to  those  who  have  no  true  freedom,  whom  we  know 
not  how  to  emancipate.  When  we  read  of  the  six  hun- 
dred weak-minded  living  descendants  (1916)  of  the 
five  "  Juke "  sisters,  we  feel  that  restriction  of  the 
multiplication  of  such  undesirable  types  is  overdue. 
It  takes  a  lot  of  different  kinds  of  people  to  make  a 
world  and  keep  it  a-going,  but  there  is  no  help  to  be 
got  from  the  weak-minded  and  the  innately  licentious. 
Certain  insane  types  are  already  taken  care  of  in 
asylums,  must  we  not  look  forward  to  an  extension 
of  the  policy  of  segregation  for  a  century  or  two?  It 
might  be  kindest  and  most  in  the  interests  of  freedom, 
after  all,  that  those  who,  by  inborn  fecklessness  and 
irresponsibility,  have  to  fall  back  on  the  State  for 
support,  should  be  looked  after,  but  permanently  and 
without  opportunity  for  multiplication. 

(d)  The  fourth  suggestion  is  that  we  must  work 
out  our  salvation  by  the  substitution  of  rational  or 
social  selection  for  natural  selection.  This  is  already 
proceeding  along  many  lines.  Thus  there  is  the  well- 
known  agency  called  by  economists  -the  "  criticism  of 
consumption  "  or  "  criticism  of  expenditure  ".  If  we 
have  a  margin  to  spend  for  super-necessaries  (which 
are  more  necessary  sometimes  than  the  necessaries), 
and  if  we  consistently  spend  that  in  what  promotes, 
let  us  say,  a  healthy  occupation  (like  gardening)  and 
things  of  beauty,  then  we  are  indubitably  selecting  in 


274          THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

the  line  of  progress.    Few  will  boast  that  they  have 
gone  as  far  as  they  could  along  this  line. 

There  is  great  selective  power  in  what  may  be 
called  efficiency  requirements.  Thus  in  certain  occu- 
pations, a  standard  of  reliability  is  exacted.  No  mat- 
ter how  desirable  a  man  may  be,  it  is  necessary  to  get 
rid  of  him  if  he  proves  unreliable.  This  does  not 
necessarily  improve  matters  socially,  for  the  man  may 
slide  into  an  easy  job  at  a  lower  level  and  have  a 
large  family;  but  on  the  whole  it  is  for  good.  It 
works  against  "  arrangements  which  tend  to  make  it 
as  well  to  be  inferior  as  to  be  superior  ",  as  Spencer 
put  it. 

§  9.    The  Social  Heritage. 

In  considering  the  role  of  natural  selection  among 
animals,  we  saw  that  great  importance  probably  at- 
taches to  the  external  system  of  linkages,  or  web  of 
life,  which  is  always  becoming  more  intricate  from 
age  to  age.  It  is  very  useful  to  apply  this  idea  to 
Man,  whose  nature  varies  slowly  in  its  hereditary 
fibre,  though  its  expression  in  the  individual  is  extraor- 
dinarily modifiable  and  educable.  The  hope  of  social 
selection  working  well  is  obviously  increased  by  the 
fact  that  man  can  register  so  many  of  his  evolutionary 
gains  outside  of  himself  in  social  organisations  and 
institutions,  laws  and  traditions,  literature  and  art. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  275 

He  cannot  move  very  fast  himself,  but  his  face  is  in 
the  right  direction  on  the  whole,  and  his  extrinsic 
registration  of  stable  things  that  last  helps  to  keep 
him  from  slipping  down  the  rungs  of  his  steep  ladder. 

Perhaps  we  do  not  sufficiently  realise  the  extent  to 
which  man  projects  himself  into  outside  things,  en- 
registering  in  them  his  ideas  and  ideals.  The  streets 
of  a  city  are  often  hung  with  invisible  memorials — an 
inspiration  to  the  educated  eye,  the  regionally  trained 
mind.  In  a  good,  as  well  as  in  a  bad  sense,  it  is  true 
what  the  prophet  Habakkuk  said:  "The  stone  shall 
cry  out  of  the  wall."  The  pity  is  that  we  are  so  badly 
educated  and  have  so  little  imagination. 

It  may  not  be  a  waste  of  time  to  linger  over  a  fa- 
miliar instance  of  Man's  power  of  enregistering  his 
gains  outside  himself.  We  know  how  some  of  the 
great  pieces  of  literature,  which  are  common  property 
among  men  and  bind  their  hearts  together,  as  melodies 
also  do,  are  enriched  by  associations  so  that  every 
word  is  dear.  The  authorised  version  of  the  Bible  is 
the  highest  example,  grand  in  itself,  but  doubly  potent 
in  what  has  been  gathered  into  it.  This  has  been  very 
beautifully  expressed  by  Canon  Faber,  who  followed 
Cardinal  Newman  in  leaving  the  Communion  of  the 
English  Church  for  that  of  the  Church  of  Rome: — 
"  Who  will  not  say  that  the  uncommon  beauty  and 
marvellous  English  of  the  Protestant  Bible  is  not  one 


276  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

of  the  great  strongholds  of  heresy  in  this  country?  It 
lives  on  the  ear  like  a  music  that  can  never  be  for- 
gotten, like  the  sound  of  church  bells,  which  the  con- 
vert hardly  knows  how  he  can  forego.  Its  felicities 
often  seem  to  be  almost  things  rather  than  mere  words. 
It  is  part  of  the  national  mind,  and  the  anchor  of  na- 
tional seriousness.  The  memory  of  the  dead  passes 
into  it.  The  potent  traditions  of  childhood  are  stereo- 
typed in  its  verses.  The  power  of  all  the  griefs  and 
trials  of  a  man  is  hidden  beneath  its  words.  It  is  the 
representation  of  his  best  moments,  and  all  that  there 
has  been  about  him  of  soft  and  gentle  and  pure  and 
penitent  and  good  speaks  to  him  forever  out  of  his 
English  Bible." 

And  again  as  to  Art,  how  well  Emerson  understood 
its  role  as  evolutionary  registration: — 

"  Let  statue,  picture,  park  and  hall, 
Ballad,  flag,  and  festival, 
The  past  restore,  the  day  adorn, 
And  make  to-morrow  a  new  morn. 
So  shall  the  drudge  in  dusty  frock 
Spy  behind  the  city  clock 
Retinues  of  airy  kings, 
Skirts  of  angels,  starry  wings, 
His  fathers  shining  in  bright  fables, 
His  children  fed  at  heavenly  tables. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  277 

'Tis  the  privilege  of  Art 

Thus  to  play  its  cheer  jul  part.  ..." 

Again,  to  descend  from  the  sublime  to  the  tedious, 
all  the  innumerable  societies  and  associations  that 
seem  to  crowd  us  in  our  life  are,  when  regarded  with 
biological  detachment,  more  or  less  fit  and  proper 
parts  of  the  external  systematisation  on  which  pro- 
gressive human  evolution  largely  depends. 

Coming  down  to  a  homely  example,  let  us  go  to 
the  ant  which  has  carried  state-socialism  to  such  ex- 
tremes. Several  generations  of  ants  inhabit  the  same 
anthill,  and  what  we  are  trying  to  express  is  that  the 
ants'  permanent  products,  and  all  that  these  stand  for 
as  liberating  stimuli,  mean  much  in  the  evolution  of 
ants.  So  much  the  more  in  the  evolution  of  men. 

§  10.   Man's  Imperium  in  Imperio. 

There  is  a  Latin  proverb  that  asks  "  who  watches 
the  watchman?  "  One  must  raise  this  question  in 
regard  to  social  selection.  How  can  we  be  sure  that 
the  social  selection  is  working  in  the  right  direction? 
In  point  of  fact,  we  are  sure  that  it  often  does  not. 
To  advertise  for  a  gardener  "  without  encumbrances  ", 
to  penalise  maternity,  to  l  sweat '  labour,  to  underpay 
some  teachers  and  ministers  so  that  they  are  bound  to 
remain  celibate,  to  acquiesce  in  arrangements  that  tend 


278  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

to  break  up  family  life,  all  this  is  selective  in  effect— 
and  selective  in  the  wrong  direction.  A  long-continued 
severe  war  in  which  a  large  proportion  of  the  popula- 
tion shares  is  likely  to  select  in  the  wrong  direction, 
as  far  as  the  biological  qualities  of  the  race  are  con- 
cerned. Short-sighted,  one-sided  economies  are  apt  to 
do  great  harm. 

How  are  we  to  select  modes  of  selection?  The  first 
half  of  the  answer  is  the  truth  that  lies  behind  theories 
of  conservatism — namely,  that  amid  much  uncertainty 
we  do  know  that  some  organisations  and  institutions 
have  proved  themselves  beneficial.  They  have  stood 
the  test  of  time  and  we  should  give  them  the  respect 
due  to  their  antiquity  provided  that  it  can  be  shown 
that  they  have  worked  well.  The  family  is  a  good 
institution,  monogamy  is  a  good  institution,  represen- 
tative government  is  a  good  institution,  freedom  in 
thought  and  in  speech  is  a  good  institution,  so  are 
mutual  aid  and  mutual  improvement  associations,  so 
are  educational  institutions  and  organisations.  Prove 
all  things  and  hold  fast  that  which  is  good.  Select  in 
the  direction  of  those  institutions  that  have  proved 
themselves  at  once  progressive  and  enduring. 

The  second  half  of  the  answer  is  in  line  with  the 
principle  already  hinted  at,  that  in  difficult  cases  a 
criterion  of  the  soundness  of  operations  in  a  given 
field  is  to  be  found  in  terms  of  values  in  a  higher  field. 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  279 

It  is  not  enough  to  ask  whether  the  gold  mine  is  run 
on  lines  of  economical  exploitation  as  regards  the  con- 
servation of  energy;  we  must  ask,  as  is  increasingly 
done:  "  What  about  the  conservation  of  life?  "  The 
exploitation  of  the  sea  by  trawling  yields  enormously 
bigger  results  than  in  the  old  days  of  line-boats,  and 
we  cannot  retrace  our  steps.  But  we  must  not  brush 
aside  as  irrelevant  the  question:  Is  it  fostering  as  fine 
a  set  of  men?  Turning  to  a  biological  case,  we  are 
assured  by  those  who  know  that  the  miseries  inflicted 
on  innocent  women  and  children  by  venereal  diseases 
are  so  appalling  that  no  one  can  venture  to  do  any- 
thing which  would  retard  the  curing  of  men  who  by 
indulgence  are  primarily  infected.  But  it  cannot  be 
said  that  this  disposes  of  the  question  of  the  conse- 
quences of  readily  annulling  the  penalties  of  anti- 
social conduct.  Hesitation  in  regard  to  this  question 
may  not  warrant  any  relaxation  in  combating  venereal 
diseases,  but  it  suggests  the  urgent  need  for  moral  as 
well  as  biological  therapeutics  and  prophylaxis.  On 
the  more  positive  side,  it  is  easy  to  think  of  liberties 
which  might  be  condoned  biologically,  but  which  would 
probably  be  very  detrimental  socially.  The  principle 
is  to  judge  operations  in  a  part  of  Man's  kingdom  not 
only  by  the  criteria  especially  relevant  there,  but  also 
by  those  which  are  known  to  hold  good  in  higher  fields. 
So,  returning  to  the  question,  How  are  we  to  criticise 


280  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

social  selection?  we  know  the  answer  to  be  that  the 
criticism  must  ultimately  refer  to  what  we  hold  as  our 
highest  ideals — the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good. 

We  all  know  a  little  about  the  true,  the  beautiful, 
and  the  good.  We  know  that  when  we  are  at  our  best 
we  set  great  store  on  them.  The  best  in  us  desires 
them  as  rewards  in  themselves.  The  best  in  us,  which 
some  philosophers  call  our  spirit,  has  intellectual, 
aesthetic,  and  moral  activities  which  reach  forward  to 
the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good.  It  is  the  expe- 
rience of  mankind  that  man  reaches  out  most  success- 
fully when  he  desires  these  things  for  their  own  sake. 
If  he  desires  them  for  some  side  issue,  he  is  likely  to 
miss  them  altogether.  This  is  in  its  way  a  sort  of 
philosophy — as  is  beautifully  explained  in  a  little  book 
by  Mr.  Glutton  Brock  called  The  Ultimate  Belief 
(Constable,  1916,  25.  6d.). 

Normal  children  have  desires  after  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  and  the  good;  and  these  fundamental  desires 
of  the  spirit,  which  are  the  best  things  we  have,  can 
be  encouraged,  especially  indirectly.  To  make  fun  of 
them  is  the  fundamental  disloyalty.  It  is  not  possible 
exactly  to  teach  what  is  true,  beautiful,  and  good,  but 
the  desires  after  them  can  be  respected  and  nourished, 
and  the  freedom  from  which  the  desires  spring  can  be 
guarded.  Why  do  we  speak  here  of  these  things? 
Because  in  difficult  cases  the  criterion  of  humbler 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  MAN  281 

operations  is  to  be  found  in  the  way  in  which  they 
affect  what  is  of  highest  value  to  us.  The  final  cri- 
terion of  the  Kingdom  of  Man  is  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

The  important  idea  may  be  put  in  another  way. 
The  growth  of  Science  is  always  to  the  good,  but  its 
value  is  increased  in  proportion  as  it  is  unified,  and 
that  requires  philosophy.  The  diffusion  of  the  scien- 
tific mood  is  always  desirable,  but  its  value  is  increased 
in  proportion  as  it  makes  for  the  integration  of 
man's  intellectual  life.  The  application  of  Science 
need  not  be  for  good  at  all;  the  degree  to  which 
it  will  be  for  good  will  depend  on  its  congruence 
with  man's  organisation  of  ideals — of  those  ideals 
which  have  seemed  best  to  men  at  their  best. 

There  is  obviously  nothing  evil  in  machinery  or 
mining  as  such;  there  can  be  nothing  evil  in  applying 
science  to  industry;  but  the  danger  of  our  weak  hu- 
manity is  in  allowing  practical  organisation  to  be 
dominated  by  some  one-sided  ideal  such  as  greed. 
And,  as  has  been  shrewdly  said,  the  reason  for  the 
ugliness  of  the  nineteenth-century  factory  and  railway 
station  and  "  tenement  "  was  the  ideal-system  of  those 
who  built  them.  They  expressed  indifference  to 
beauty  and  common  weal.  "  Their  hideousness  was 
but  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  motive  of  their 
builders.  They  carried  the  signature  of  private  greed, 
not  of  public  spirit." 


282  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

In  the  same  way,  as  we  pass  from  the  age  of  steam 
to  the  age  of  electricity,  it  is  not  enough  to  have  the 
utilisation  of  electrical  power  organised;  what  is 
wanted  is  organisation  related  to  great  ends.  These 
ends  are  not  confined  to  the  most  economical  supply 
of  power  to  an  industrial  area;  they  must  be  national 
rather  than  local,  and  social  as  well  as  economic. 
Thus,  country  districts  require  to  be  electrified  as  well 
as  towns. 

But  is  not  this  getting  into  spheres  where  the  Bible, 
not  Biology,  should  give  man  counsel?  Of  a  truth 
man  needs  all  the  counsel  he  can  get,  but  our  present 
point  is  that  more  attention  to  the  biological  control 
of  life  might  make  it  possible  for  man  to  go  further 
with  that  higher  control  which  will  lead  him  past  the 
desires  of  the  flesh  to  the  desires  after  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  and  the  good.  For  these  desires  spring 
from  a  certain  freedom  of  spirit,  and  that  may  be  best 
conserved,  or  attained,  or  reached  towards,  as  the  case 
may  be,  if  man  has  attended  first  to  what  Biology  has 
to  tell  him  regarding  heredity,  development,  nurture, 
health,  childhood,  adolescence,  sex,  marriage,  ageing, 
and  the  biological  aspects  of  Man's  endeavours  to 
enter  more  fully  into  his  Kingdom. 


CHAPTER  IX. 
PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION 

§  i.  What  Is  Meant  by  Progress? — §  2.  Progress  a  Fact. 
§3.  A  Contribution  to  a  Critique  of  Progress. — §  4. 
Towards  a  New  Stoicism. — §  5.  Looking  Forwards. 

§  i.   What  Is  Meant  by  Progress? 

WHEN  we  ask  if  the  gardener  is  making  progress 
with  his  work,  if  the  patient  is  making  progress  to- 
wards health,  if  the  investigation  is  making  progress 
towards  a  solution  of  the  problem,  every  one  knows 
what  we  mean  by  progress.  We  mean  getting  nearer 
a  desired  result,  which  is  clearly  defined.  But  what 
do  we  mean  when  we  speak  of  the  progress  of  the 
human  race  or  of  a  nationality?  We  cannot  say  that 
we  mean  evolution  or  improvement  or  betterment,  for 
that  is  merely  using  another  word.  It  is  not  satisfac- 
tory to  say  that  progress  is  movement  to  a  desired 
result,  for  what  is  the  criterion  of  the  value  of  the 
desired  result?  It  is  a  common  argument  in  favour 
of  some  scheme  that  it  makes  for  progress.  But  what 
is  this  mysterious  progress,  this  racial,  or  national,  or 
civic  progress? 

283 


284  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

Cosmic  Development. — Long,  long  ago  our  solar 
system  was  established  around  a  central  sun.  It  seems 
likely  that  the  earth  was  heaved  off  from  the  central 
mass  as  a  spiral  nebula,  and  that  the  other  planets 
had  a  similar  origin.  During  a  prolonged  period,  the 
earth  consolidated  and  became  fit  to  be  a  home  of 
life.  Is  increase  of  intricacy  and  definiteness  neces- 
sarily progressive,  or  is  the  note  of  progress  in  the 
possibility  of  something  new?  The  integration  of  the 
earth  and  all  that  in  it  was,  opened  up  the  possibility 
of  living  creatures.  If  it  was  not  progress,  it  was 
surely  in  that  direction. 

Organic  Evolution. — Many  millions  of  years  ago,  in 
some  unknown  way,  living  creatures  began  to  be  upon 
the  earth;  and  as  age  followed  age,  they  were  suc- 
ceeded by  forms  on  the  whole  more  complicated,  con- 
trolled, emancipated,  and  intelligent.  Now,  if  the 
advent  of  more  masterful,  controlled,  free,  intelligent 
forms  of  life  means  progress,  then  organic  evolution 
shows  progress.  There  has  been  frequent  retrogres- 
sion and  degeneracy,  there  are  many  parasites,  there 
are  blind  alleys  of  great  complexity  which  are  puzzling 
to  the  hasty-minded;  but  the  larger  fact  is  an  onward 
sweep. 

On  the  whole,  common  sense  regards  it  as  certain 
that  there  has  been  in  Organic  Evolution  something 
like  what  Lotze  thought  he  discerned — "  an  onward  ad- 


PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION  285 

vancing  melody  ".  There  was  a  time  when  there  were 
no  backboned  animals  except  Fishes;  ages  passed  and 
there  were  Fishes,  Amphibians,  and  Reptiles;  ages 
passed  and  there  were  also  Birds  and  Mammals.  Was 
not  this  progress?  And  yet,  why  do  we  feel  sure  that 
Birds  and  Mammals  mark  an  advance  on  Reptiles? 
It  cannot  be  mere  complexity.  It  is  because  they  are 
more  controlled  or  integrated,  more  masters  of  their 
fate,  with  more  mentality.  So  progress  means  move- 
ment towards  certain  ideals  which  we  cherish.  It  is 
a  verdict  based  on  our  sense  of  values.  There  is  a 
clue  here  that  we  must  hold  to.  Evolution  on  the 
whole  is  integrative;  it  makes  against  disintegration 
and  disorder,  against  instability,  against  the  entropy 
or  degradation  of  energy  which  marks  the  inorganic. 

It  has  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  with  the  evolution 
of  the  type  there  was  correlated  an  evolution  of  inter- 
relations binding  lives  together  in  a  systema  nature?, 
a  web  of  life  whose  pattern  becomes  more  and  more 
significant.  This  external  registration  acted  along  with 
the  organismal  or  hereditary  registration  in  conserving 
evolutionary  gains  once  made;  it  was  at  once  a  condi- 
tion and  an  organon  of  progress.  The  higher  animal 
was  able  to  see  more  meaning  in  the  world,  but  there 
was  also  more  meaning  to  discover. 

In  any  case,  it  is  plain  that  there  has  been  an  in- 
creasing solidarity  in  Animate  Nature,  and  much  that 


286  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

seemed  at  first  insignificant  is  now  known  to  con- 
tribute fundamentally  to  the  stability  of  the  super- 
structure in  which  we  discern  progressiveness  most 
clearly.  The  Kingdom  of  Man  depends  on  a  peculiar 
quality  of  a  green  pigment;  the  vigorous  life  of  higher 
animals  depends  on  another  pigment;  flowers  depend 
on  insects;  fishes  depend  on  water-fleas,  infusorians, 
and  sea-dust.  Even  when  a  race  becomes  extinct,  it 
would  be  rash  to  say  that  it  has  lived  in  vain. 

The  critic  may  intervene,  however,  and  say:  "  No 
doubt  Mammals,  for  instance,  have  more  control,  more 
freedom,  more  mind  than  Reptiles  have;  but  are  you 
not  forgetting  that  they  began  to  run  new  risks,  to 
make  new  kinds  of  mistakes,  to  suffer  pain,  to  fear?  " 
To  which  the  answer  may  be  made:  "  Granting  the 
taxes  on  progress  and  the  pains  of  progress,  it  was 
worth  while  that  Mammals  should  have  evolved." 
Yet  if  pressed  to  say  why  we  feel  sure  that  it  was 
worth  while,  must  we  not  answer  (i)  that  the  evolu- 
tionary process  which  led  to  Mammals  was  making 
in  the  direction  of  Man  and  of  Man's  kingdom,  and 
(2)  that  it  was  making  towards  a  fuller  realisation 
of  what  we  value  most — control,  freedom,  understand- 
ing, and  love.  Progress  is,  of  course,  a  modern  and 
sociological  concept,  (meaning  increase  in  the  realisa- 
tion of  what  the  racial  consciousness  has  most  per- 
sistently held  to  be  of  the  highest  value,>but  our  point 


PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION  287 

is  that  there  is  something  analogous  to  this  in  the 
great  trends  of  integrative  evolution. 

The  Ascent  of  Man. — The  evolution  of  organisms 
has  its  climax  in  the  ascent  of  Man,  the  establishment 
of  societary  forms,  the  process  of  civilisation,  the 
march  of  human  history.  Now,  no  one  will  say  that 
the  march  of  human  history  is  in  itself  progress,  in 
the  sense  of  necessarily  leading  to  the  enrichment  of 
life.  Many  of  the  changes — perhaps  inevitable— - 
have  been  very  miserable  at  the  time  and  of  dubious 
benefit  when  effected.  Many  aspects  of  the  so-called 
Industrial  Revolution  in  Great  Britain  were  full  of 
misery  and  it  is  open  to  question  whether  we  are  the 
better  of  Industrialism.  And  what  does  "  the  better  " 
mean? 

When  we  contrast  the  Bird  and  Mammal  world  with 
the  world  before  they  emerged,  we  say  "  progress  ", 
meaning  movement  towards  the  actualisation  of  what 
we  regard  as  of  the  highest  value.  We  have  a  gamut 
of  millions  of  years  and  we  get  a  good  contrast.  But 
can  the  same  be  said  of  the  much  shorter  span  covered 
by  human  history?  Is  not  humanity  like  Sisyphus, 
ever  rolling  the  stone  up  the  hill,  only  to  have  it  tum- 
ble down  again?  And  yet,  whoever  doubts  human 
progress  should  think  of  our  ancestors — as  ^Eschylus 
pictured  them — living  in  caves,  without  fire,  without 
wood-work,  without  system,  without  seasons,  without 


288  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

foresight.  A  fairly  accurate  picture  to  be  contrasted 
with  Man's  conditions  to-day.  As  we  have  already 
said,  modern  Man  has  made  the  ether  carry  his  mes- 
sages; he  can  hear  from  afar  the  cry  of  the  ship  in 
distress  upon  the  sea;  he  can  make  Niagara  drive 
mills  and  illumine  cities  hundreds  of  miles  from  the 
Falls.  Science  has  harnessed  electricity  to  Man's 
chariot,  and  added  the  depths  of  the  sea  and  the 
heights  of  the  air  to  his  navigable  kingdom.  Already 
Science  is  making  bread  out  of  the  thin  air,  working 
miracles  in  the  conquest  of  plague  and  pestilence, 
and  controlling  the  inheritance  of  generations  un- 
born. Can  any  one  doubt  human  progress  on  a  long 
view? 

§  2.   Progress  a  Fact. 

The  facts  of  organic  evolution,  considered  broadly, 
compel  us  to  believe  in  progress,  and  the  same  is  prob- 
ably true  in  regard  to  human  history.  But  reasoned 
scepticism  as  to  the  reality  of  progress  (as  in  the 
recent  studies  by  Professor  Bury  and  Dean  Inge)  is 
very  useful.  For  we  have  no  right  to  assume  that 
mere  carrying  on,  or  even  struggling  on,  is  progress, 
i.e.  movement  in  the  direction  of  realising  what  the 
racial  consciousness  holds  to  be  of  most  value.  We 
cannot  trust  to  ratiocination,  for  we  invent  political 
and  economic  theories,  which  are  conscious  or  uncon- 


PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION          289 

scious  attempts  to  justify  our  practice  before  the  tri- 
bunal of  reason. 

Scepticism  as  to  Progress. — Is  progress  at  present 
demonstrable  or  may  this  be  a  period  of  retrogression 
in  the  species  or  in  part  of  the  species?  We  are  only 
a  few  hours  from  scenes  of  horrible  starvation  and 
agony  among  women  and  children  and  old  people;  we 
are  only  a  few  miles  from  slums  and  warrens;  we  are 
only  a  few  steps  from  dull,  stupid,  oppressed  lives 
without  outlook  or  uplift;  we  are  perhaps  only  a  few 
hours  from  being  ourselves  bedrugged  by  some  miser- 
able microbe  which  we  call  influenza,  or  from  being 
pushed  off  the  stage  by  a  typhoid  bacillus  brought  to 
us  by  one  neighbour's  flies  from  another  neighbour's 
leaking  drains.  Is  progress  so  clear  in  our  midst? 
The  answer,  "  In  some  things  Yes,  in  others  No;  in 
some  circles  Yes,  in  others  No,"  is  true;  but  it  sug- 
gests that  our  definition  is  still  incomplete.  When  we 
think  of  the  seamy  side  of  modern  life  (e.g.  our 
present-day  panem  et  cir censes:  subsidised  bread  and 
cinemas) ;  when  we  remember  that  the  glory  that  was 
Greece  was  largely  based  on  slavery,  and  was  contem- 
porary with  an  intolerable  view  of  womankind,  and 
eventually  with  little  in  the  way  of  home  life — one  of 
man's  surest  gains  in  well-being,  we  see  that  we  must 
add  to  our  definition, — progress  is  a  balanced  or  har- 
monious movement  towards  a  fuller  embodiment  of 


290  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

the  highest  values.  We  are  tired  of  cackle  about 
progress  when  it  is  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  misery  of 
multitudes.  A  social  body  cannot  be  making  progress 
as  a  whole  if  it  has  a  long  tail — of  those  who  do  not 
have  their  chance.  Equalitarianism  is  biologically  a 
fantastic  fallacy,  but  we  must  work  towards  a  rea- 
sonable equality  of  opportunity  to  allow  those  who  be- 
lieve that  they  are  more  than  equals  of  their  superiors 
to  prove  their  claim.  We  see,  then,  that  the  idea  of 
progress  is  in  process  of  evolution,  for  we  have  added 
to  it  the  idea  of  social  integration.  A  social  body  can- 
not be  making  more  than  particulate  progress,  if  it 
contains  a  large  proportion  of  members  who  do  not  get 
a  fair  chance. 

The  Higher  Values. — Man's  ideals  are  the  reaching 
forward  of  his  desires  when  he  is  at  his  best,  and 
progress  is  an  integrated  movement  towards  their 
fuller  embodiment.  So  in  our  definition  of  progress 
we  must  give  first  place  to  those  values  that  we  are 
surest  about — the  truth  and  the  seeking  of  it,  the 
beautiful  and  the  making  of  it,  the  good  and  the  doing 
of  it.  These  values  we  call  absolute,  because  they  are 
desirable  as  ends  in  themselves,  because  we  cannot 
have  too  much  of  them,  because  they  never  bring 
satiety,  because  they  are  their  own  reward,  and  be- 
cause as  civilisation  deepens  they  have  an  increasing 
survival  value. 


PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION  291 

Idealist  and  Realist. — Here  we  meet  a  familiar  dif- 
ficulty. We  are  surest  about  the  true,  the  beautiful, 
and  the  good.  When  we  are  at  our  best  the  best  part 
of  us  declares  that  these  are  best.  A  certain  type  of 
mind,  idealistic  we  may  say,  keeps  close  to  these 
highest  values,  and  conquers  the  world  by  other- 
worldiness.  Another  type  of  mind,  realistic  we  may 
say,  is  more  matter-of-fact,  finding  the  supreme  values 
too  aerial.  The  realists  wish  to  see  the  goodness  of 
God  in  the  land  of  the  living — that  is  to  say,  to  see 
progress  in  the  here  and  now,  not  so  much  in  the 
cosmos  as  in  their  own  region.  There  is  no  contradic- 
tion, of  course,  but  there  is  a  difficulty.  We  are  facing 
one  of  the  deepest  dichotomies  of  human  tempera- 
ment, that  between  idealists  and  realists,  that  between 
the  philosophical  and  the  scientific. 

One  way  of  meeting  the  difficulty  may  be  briefly 
stated.  The  true,  the  beautiful,  the  good  are  supreme 
values — intellectual,  emotional,  moral — the  ideals  of 
head,  heart,  and  hand — but  below  them  there  are  fun- 
damental values,  especially  two,  (i)  the  economical 
use  of  energy  and  the  increase  of  material  resources, 
and  (2)  health  (including  adaptation  to  bracing  sur- 
roundings). Without  these  there  cannot  be  stability 
or  persistence.  Would  it  be  progress  to  have  a  race 
of  very  wise  men  and  women,  all  invalids?  A  vigorous 
fool  would  be  a  great  relief.  Would  it  be  progress  to 


292  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

have  a  beautiful  race,  relatively  sterile?  Would  it  be 
progress  to  have  a  very  good  race,  without  joy?  So 
must  we  not  say  that  there  are  physical  and  biological 
pre-conditions  of  social  progress,  the  physical  pre- 
condition of  mastering  the  powers  of  Nature,  the  bio- 
logical pre-condition  of  good  breed,  good  work,  and 
good  place — eugenics,  eutechnics,  and  eutopias? 

Definition  of  Progress. — So  our  definition  now  runs: 
—Progress  is  a  balanced  movement  of  a  social  whole 
towards  the  fuller  embodiment  of  the  supreme  values, 
but  at  the  same  time  towards  a  fuller  realisation  of 
the  physical  and  biological  pre-conditions  which  secure 
persistence. 

There  is  probably  more  than  verbal  value  here.  On 
the  one  hand,  insistence  on  the  biological  and  physical 
pre-conditions  may  help  to  make  idealism  more  prac- 
tical. Is  a  vote  of  much  moment  if  we  cannot  have 
a  bath?  Is  even  beauty  of  great  price  if  we  have  not 
time  to  look  at  it.  "  A  poor  life  this,  if,  full  of  care, 
we  have  no  time  to  stand  and  stare."  The  funda- 
mental is  as  necessary  as  the  supreme.  Little  use 
in  a  fine  torso,  if  the  feet  are  of  clay. 

But  a  recognition  of  the  pre-conditions  of  social 
progress  has  another  aspect.  It  is  all  very  well  to 
say  to  your  horse,  "  Come  on,  then,  like  a  good  fel- 
low,"— that  is  the  psychological  stimulus;  but  it  is 
not  very  well  if  we  forget  to  give  him  his  oats  in  the 


PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION  293 

morning, — that  is  the  biological  pre-condition.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  we  treat  our  horse  simply  as  a 
thermodynamic  engine,  we  will  not  get  either  the  most 
or  the  best  out  of  him;  if  we  treat  him  simply  as  a 
mammal,  we  shall  also  fail,  though  not  so  egregiously; 
we  must  treat  him  as  a  brother  mind-body — "  Brer 
Horse."  We  should  beware,  then,  of  thinking  that 
eugenics  (good  breeding)  will  necessarily  engender  a 
good  heart;  we  should  not  be  too  sure  that  eupsychics 
(good  education)  may  not  be  the  shortest  way  to 
eutopia  (good  environment).  Progress  is  manifold, 
but  the  organism  is  one. 

§  3.     A  Contribution  to  the  Critique  of  Progress. 

We  are  here  in  sight  of  a  principle,  a  contribution 
to  the  critique  of  progress.  Civilisation  has  been 
handicapped  in  the  past  by  insufficient  use  of  Science 
as  a  torch  to  well-being.  This  handicap  continues, 
but  it  is  lessening.  The  more  we  use  Science  for  life 
the  better,  but  there  is  the  risk  of  being  guided  too 
much  by  one  science. 

Our  kindly  social  sentiment  and  sense  of  solidarity 
is  a  sign  of  progress;  every  right-minded  person  hopes 
for  more.  And  yet,  we  help  the  sickly,  the  diseased, 
the  thriftless,  the  feckless,  and  we  must  go  on  helping 
them,  for  we  have  thrown  off  forever  the  old  rat- 
against-rat  theory.  We  have  thrown  off  the  yoke  of 


294  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

Natural  Selection.  And  yet,  if  we  persist  in  sheltering 
inferiority  from  the  penalties  of  inferiority,  if  we  per- 
sist in  not  allowing  superiority  to  reap  anything  like 
the  full  rewards  of  superiority,  we  are  assuredly  mak- 
ing for  trouble.  So  some  brave  men  would  return  to 
Lycurgan  methods,  to  Plato's  purgation  of  the  State. 
But  we  cannot  do  this  wisely,  we  have  not  knowledge 
enough;  and  we  would  not  if  we  could.  We  must 
think  out  subtler  ways,  conservative  of  such  higher 
values  as  good-will,  and  yet  safeguarding  us  from 
being  kind  to  the  present  and  cruel  to  the  future.  If 
we  generalise  this  we  get  a  glimpse  of  a  critique  of 
progress, — we  must  judge  any  social  change  by  the 
criteria  of  successively  higher  ideals.  Is  it  sound  phys- 
ically, biologically,  psychologically,  socially?  But  we 
must  judge  physical  operations  not  only  in  themselves 
but  in  the  light  of  biological  ideals,  and  biological 
operations  in  the  light  of  the  psychological,  and  psy- 
chological changes  in  the  light  of  the  social,  which  in- 
cludes the  ethical. 

Increased  productivity  is  a  physical  ideal — will  it 
mean  increased  health?  It  has  often  meant  a  black 
country  and  a  short  drab  life.  Increased  efficiency  is 
an  ideal  for  engines,  will  it  mean  increased  freedom 
of  the  spirit?  Increased  health  is  an  ideal  for  the 
animal,  but  man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  he  is  a 
mind-body  as  well  as  a  body-mind.  Pruning  off  dis- 


PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION  295 

eased  branches  is  a  biological  ideal,  but  Herodian 
methods  would  probably  sap  the  spiritual  vitality  of 
society.  The  principal  of  guidance  is  this — judge  the 
physical  in  the  light  of  the  biological,  and  the  bio- 
logical in  the  light  of  the  psychological,  and  the  psy- 
chological in  the  light  of  the  social.  More  simply,  our 
proposals  for  progress  must  in  the  long  run  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  august  tribunal  of  the  true,  the  beautiful, 
and  the  good. 

The  big  things  are  truth,  beauty,  and  goodness;  but 
the  scientific  realist  wishes  instalments  in  the  concrete. 
So  we  have  suggested,  to  get  the  question  clear,  that 
there  are  fundamental  pre-conditions  of  the  realisation 
of  the  supreme  values.  These  pre-conditions  are  phys- 
ical and  biological.  The  physical  pre-conditions  are 
increased  material  resources  and  increased  econ- 
omy in  using  them.  We  have  already  quoted 
Sir  William  Ramsay,  who  declared  that  "  real  prog- 
ress consists  in  learning  how  better  to  employ  energy 
— how  better  to  effect  its  transformation."  The  bio- 
logical pre-conditions  are:  vigour,  energy,  initiative, 
adaptation  to  enriching  and  conserving  surroundings: 
health,  for  short. 

§  4.   A  New  Stoicism. 

But  there  is  another  way  of  looking  at  our  question, 
— a  new  light  on  the  old  maxim:  Follow  Nature.  What 


296  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

does  Animate  Nature  make  for?  What  is  sanctioned 
with  prolonged  survival  without  degeneracy?  We 
must  answer  on  the  whole,  the  healthy  and  the  know- 
ing in  the  widest  sense,  the  beautiful,  and  those  that 
care  for  others  as  well  as  themselves,  such  as  Birds 
and  Mammals. 

First,  take  the  beautiful.  Here  Nature's  uncon- 
scious ideal  and  Man's  desire  are  in  harmony,  except 
that  artifice  counts  for  more  in  Man's  case,  and  we 
do  not  know  of  animals  more  than  beginning  to  try 
to  express  ideas  in  modifications  of  matter  and  energy, 
which  is  art. 

Second,  take  the  good.  Nature  is  always  taking  ad- 
vantage of  her  children's  capacity  for  self -forget  ful- 
ness. The  highest  success  is  with  the  creatures  that 
care  for  others  and  work  well,  with  creatures  who, 
though  they  do  not  think  '  the  ought ',  are  beginning 
to  be  good. 

Third,  take  truth-seeking.  Surely  that  is  not  one 
of  Nature's  ideals.  But  knowing  the  facts  is  on  the 
way  to  truth,  and  the  knowing  creatures  survive. 

Moreover,  every  one  agrees  that  Animate  Nature  is 
all  for  health.  But  beauty  is  in  part  an  expression  of 
healthy  harmonious  living,  and  though  all  sorts  of  ex- 
ceptions have  to  be  made  for  man,  some  of  these,  like 
the  invalid's  fine  face,  chiselled  from  within,  prove  the 
rule. 


PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION  297 

Again,  for  those  who  start  fair,  health  is  a  subtle 
index  of  goodness,  while  goodness  makes  for 
health. 

Yet  again,  what  if  truth-seeking  is  just  the  natural 
activity  of  the  active  healthy  mind?  What  if  lucidity, 
beauty,  health  are  all  congruous — implying  unified  and 
harmonious  life  such  as  Nature  sanctions?  Thus  con- 
crete and  abstract  harmonise.  Thus  Man's  progress, 
which  Huxley  said  must  be  against  the  cosmic  process, 
is  really  in  a  line  with  it. 

§  5.   Looking  Forwards. 

We  have  been  seeking  after  a  definition  of  the  con- 
cept of  progress,  and  we  have  not  attempted  to  discuss 
the  factors  (the  initiatives,  the  sifting,  and  the  holding 
fast),  or  the  various  lines  of  progress  (organismal, 
functional,  environmental,  and  social),  or  the  shadows 
on  progress  (especially  of  non-participation  and  non- 
persistence).  All  these  questions  demand  separate 
treatment.  We  must  notice,  however,  an  addition  to 
our  definition  which  seems  to  be  demanded  by  the 
fact  that  many  who  share  in  the  struggle  do  not  in 
any  way  share  in  the  victory, — take  the  men  of 
Neanderthal,  for  instance,  our  predecessors  but  not 
our  ancestors.  They  were  on  a  human  side-track.  It 
is  customary  to  try  to  dispel  the  shadows  of  non- 
participation  and  non-persistence  by  considering  the 


298  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

possibilities  of  mundane  and  transmundane  conserva- 
tion of  values. 

Work  a  Satisfaction  in  Itself. 

These  lights  are  surely  worthy  of  our  most  serious 
consideration,  but  we  venture  to  make  a  practical  sug- 
gestion. Sometimes  we  live  a  day  so  very  fine  that 
we  say  to  ourselves:  Well,  this  justifies  it  all.  We 
warm  both  hands — of  soul  and  body — at  the  fire  of 
life,  and  are  content.  We  would  willingly  enjoy  more, 
but  we  would  not  grumble.  We  have  spent  a  pleasant 
day  with  our  host,  and  we  are  not  angry  if  he  does 
not  ask  us  to  stay  the  night.  So,  though  not  on  any 
easy  terms,  would  we  have  it  with  our  life,  that  it  be 
on  the  whole,  and  in  many  of  its  parts,  sufficient  re- 
ward in  itself.  So  would  we  have  it  for  all  mankind. 
For  the  past  it  has  not  been  so;  but  these  conditions 
are  slowly  passing.  We  would  that  all  men  of  good- 
will should  find  their  lives  good  in  themselves.  As 
it  says  in  Ecclesiastes:  "  So  I  recognised  that  there  is 
no  greater  satisfaction  for  a  man  than  to  be  happy  in 
his  work — that  is  his  reward."  Thus  in  reference  to 
mankind,  progress  may  be  defined  as  a  balanced  move- 
ment of  a  social  whole  towards  fuller  embodiment  of 
the  supreme  values  (the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the 
good)  in  conditions  which  increasingly  realise  the 
fundamental  physical  and  biological  pre-conditions  of 


PROGRESS  IN  EVOLUTION  299 

stability  and  persistence,  and  in  lives  which  are  in- 
creasingly rewards  in  themselves,  both  individually  and 
socially. 

IN  CONCLUSION. 

We  have  seen  that  the  application  of  sound  biology 
might  do  much  to  raise  the  standard  of  individual 
healthfulness  and  that  it  can  help  towards  '  the  im- 
provement of  the  human  breed ',  to  use  Sir  Francis 
Galton's  phrase  which  points  to  racial  evolution  as  well 
as  to  individual  development.  Increased  healthfulness 
of  the  human  organism  as  a  whole,  body-mind  and 
mind-body,  is  one  of  the  pre-conditions  of  progress. 

We  have  also  seen  that  the  application  of  sound 
biology  can  do  much  to  remove  shackles  which  inhibit 
the  higher  adventures  of  the  human  spirit.  It  may 
seem  to  some  like  a  bathos  to  refer  to  the  handicapping 
of  human  life  by  hookworm  disease;  if  they  knew 
more  about  it  they  would  count  the  conquest  of  that 
disease  (and  many  another)  as  a  climax.  The  facts 
warrant  the  belief  that  many  of  the  shadows  and  dis- 
harmonies of  human  life  can  be  got  rid  of  when  good- 
will joins  hands  with  Science.  But  there  is  more. 
Our  studies  indicate  for  mankind  a  mundane  future 
which  is  irradiated  with  hope.  This  hope  is  grounded 
on  the  fact  that  evolution  in  the  past  has  been  on  the 
whole  progressive,  towards  integration,  towards  in- 


300  THE  CONTROL  OF  LIFE 

creasing  fullness,  freedom,  and  fitness  of  life.  There 
has  been  "  a  constant  if  chequered  advance  ".  Will  it 
stop? 

We  see  in  evolution  the  possibility  of  turning  even 
mistakes  and  failures  to  some  advantage;  we  have 
the  same  hope  for  ourselves  and  for  our  race. 

Man's  highest  conception,  his  conception  of  God, 
must  enlarge  as  his  thoughts  are  widened;  but  it  is 
surely  interesting  that  the  modern  idea  of  a  God — a 
God  of  evolution — brings  us  back  to  the  God  of  our 
fathers,  whose  name — the  scholars  tell  us — meant  not 
"  I  am  that  I  am  ",  but  "  I  will  be  what  I  will  be  ". 


INDEX 


Abnormalities,  61-62,  80 

Abortion,  241,  242 

Accommodations,  102 

Acquired  characters,  101 

Activity  in  the  child's  educa- 
tion, 190 

Adjustments,  102 

Adolescence,  193 

Adrenal  bodies,  159 

Adrenalin,  159 

Adventure,  130,  187,  225 

Esthetic  element  in  education, 
189,  191 

Africa,  tropical,  13 

Age,  174;  causes,  205;  difficult 
age,  202;  problem  of  grow- 
ing old,  203 

Albuminuria,  162 

Alcohol,  79,  108,  137,  179,  207 

Allelomorphs,  71 

American  polled  Herefords,  56 

Amphidasys  lectularia,  212 

Ancestral  inheritance,  law  of, 
81 

Ancon  sheep,  56,  64 

Andalusian  fowls,  71 

Animals,  251 ;  diseases  in,  168 ; 
new  habitats,  252;  reliability 
and  unreliability,  247;  wild, 
and  mankind,  268;  wild,  sur- 
vival, 212 

Animate  nature,  296 

Anopheles,  256 

Ante-natal  life,  176,  177,  214, 
216 

Antitoxins,  164,  170 

Ants,  277 


Anxiety-neuroses,  195 
Appetites,  52 
Apple,  29 

Applied  science,  14 
Aptitudes,  188 
Aquatic  ancestry,  186 
Arboreal  man,  181 
Arm,  136,  141 

Army,  human  body  like,  144 
Art,  1 88,  276 
Ascent  of  man,  287 
Asia,  birth-control  in,  236 
Astronomy,  5 
Atavism,  75 

Australia,    fish,    252;     fishing, 
253 

Backbone,  50,  140,  184 
Bacon,  Francis,  298 ;  on  control 

of    life,   31 ;    on   knowledge, 

15,  1 6,  17,  18 
Bacteria,  32,  162 
Baldness,  80 
Ballantyne,  J.  W.,  179 
Bar,  Prof.,  180 
Bateson,     William,     129;     on 

genetics,  38;  on  science  and 

utility,  17 
Bats,  176 

Bayliss,  W.  M.,  158 
Beautiful,  good,  true,  280,  282, 

290,  291,  295 

Beauty,  262,  273,  281,  296 
Beebe,  C.  W.,  100 
Bees,  165 
Behaviour,  172 
Bentinck,  Henry,  166 


301 


302 


INDEX 


Bergson,  Henri,  61 

Beri-beri,  79,  164 

Bible,  275 

Biceps,  141 

Bilharsia,  256 

Bilharziasis,  9,  163,  256 

Biologism,  248 

Biology,  application  to  human 
life,  9;  of  health,  134 

Biosphere,  245,  246 

Birds,  285 ;  food  and  colour  re- 
lation, 100;  juvenile  period, 
176;  migratory,  247;  repro- 
ductive relations,  215;  sur- 
vival, 218 

Birth  control,  224,  225 ;  caution 
needed,  209;  deliberate,  232- 
233 ;  means,  241 ;  motive, 
243;  preventives,  242 

Birth-rate,  decreasing,  226 ;  dif- 
ferential decline,  237;  diffi- 
culty of  determining  facts 
about,  210;  good  and  evil  in 
the  decline,  234 ;  London,  238, 
reasons  for  decrease,  230 

Black  Country,  250 

Black  Death,  162 

Blackhearted  gull,  92 

Blending  inheritance,  68,  71 

Blindness,  95,  106,  161 ;  gold- 
fish, 99 

Blue  tit,  217 

Bobolink,  100 

Body,  as  an  engine,  138;  com- 
pared to  an  army,  144;  dis- 
harmonies, 135;  influence  of 
mind  on,  170;  internal  econ- 
omy, 158;  members  and,  157 

Boer  farmers,  34 

Bones,  142-143 

Bonger,  W.  A.,  119 

Bordage,  M.,  no 

Born  old,  175 

Boy  Scouts,  191 

Brachydactylism,  73,  80 

Bracken,  254 

Bragg,  W.  H.,  16 


Brain,  50,  147,  154 
Branford,  Benchara,  16 
Breeding  of  pure-breds,  64 
Brock,  Glutton,  280 
Bruce,  David   (1855-),  36 
Bubonic  plague,  162,  169 
Buffon,  G.  L.  C.,  207 
Bulinus,  257 
Bury,  J.  B.,  288 
Butler,  Samuel,  134,  196,  213 
Butterflies,  214 
Buttermilk,  208 

Caliban,  87-88 

California  seedless  orange,  56 

Callosities,  98,  in 

Camels,  in 

Canada,  38 

Canaries,  100 

Capacities,  51 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  19 

Carriers  of  disease,  163 

Castle,  W.  E.,  69 

Cataract,  presenile,  73 

Caterpillars,  100 

Cattle,  56 ;  breeding  pure-breds, 

64 
Celery,  100 

Cells,  156 

Cerebral  cortex,  154,  155,  178 

Change,  166,  208 

Charity,  271 

Cheerfulness,  114,  115,  172 

Chelidonium  magus,  90 

Chemical  messengers,  145,  158 

Chemistry,  13 

Chevreul,  M.  E.,  160 

Chickens,  190 

Child,  Prof.,  97,  175,  207 

Childbirth,  35 

Childhood,       impressionability, 

192 ;    playing   and   schooling, 

187 
Children,  as  investments,  231 ; 

born     old,     175;     value     of 

training,  131 
China,  221,  228,  258 


INDEX 


303 


Chinese  primrose,  93,  103 
Chloroform,  35 
Cholera,  162 
Chromosomes,  58 
Cinemas,  289 
Circulation,  171 
Circumstances,  199 
Civilisation,  25,  177;  dilemma, 

268,  270;  fertility  and,  219 
Clouston,  Sir  Thomas,  117 
Coal,  7 

Coal-tar  products,  7 
Cockchafer-beetles,  33 
Codfish,  212-213 
Colour-blindness,  80 
Colour   of    skin,    55;    tanning, 

100 

Columba  livid,  30 
Common-sense,  126 
Comradeship,  198 
Comstock,  Anthony,  242 
Comte,  Auguste,  202 
Conduct,  effect  on  health  as  a 

test,  172 
Conic  section,  n 
Consciousness,  152,  153 
Conservation  of  life,  279 
Control    of    disease,    255;    of 

organisms,    251 ;    of    things, 

249 
Control  of  life,  Bacon  on,  31 ; 

biological,    27 ;    illustrations, 

33 ;  Pasteur  and,  32 
Cormorants,  252 
Cosmic  development,  284 
Cosmosphere,  245 
Cousins,  marriage  of  defective 

stock,  124 
Cretinism,  13,  39 
Crimes,  118 
Criminals,   119 
Criterion,  final,  277,  281 
Crookes,  Sir  William,  8 
Crystals,  246 
Cultivation,  84 
Curiosity,  255 
Cytoplasm,  58 


Darbishire,  A.  D.,  255 

Darwin,  Charles,  13,  75,  112, 
200,  224,  265;  evolution  and, 
30,  32 

Davenport,  C.  B.,  114,  116 

Deaf-mutes,  marriage,  271 

Deaf-mutism,  80,  259 

Death,  206,  214 

Death-rate  of  infants,  182 

Defectives,  272 

Democratic  tendency,  3 

Denmark,  38 

Dents.    See  Dints 

Determinism  and  freedom,  45 

Development,  189;  nurture 
and,  88 

De  Vries,  Hugo,  61 

Dewey,  John,  on  the  scientific 
habit  of  mind,  25 

Diabetes,  78,  162,  259 

Dichotomy,  115,  291 

Differentiation,  174 

Digestion,  160,  171 

Dilemma  of  civilisation,  268, 
270 

Dints,  62,  63,  101,  103,  109 

Diosophila  ampelophila,  94 

Diphtheria,  9,  13,  169 

Discoverers,  14,  16,  17 

Diseases,  constitutional,  78,  161, 
269;  control  of,  255;  defini- 
tion, 78,  160-161 ;  inheritance 
and,  76;  mastery  of,  169; 
microbic,  162;  microbic  and 
parasitic,  9 ;  modificational, 
79,  164;  persistence  in  cam- 
paign against,  267;  three 
kinds,  161 ;  wild  animals  and, 
168 

Disharmonies,  135 ;  reasons 
for,  269 

Distomum  hepaticum,  256 

Divorce,  201 

Domestication,  28,  84 

Dominance,  69;  complete  and 
incomplete,  70,  71 

Doves,  30 


304 


INDEX 


Drunkenness,  108,  120 
Ductless  glands,  9,  13,  145,  158 
Dugdale,  R.  L.,  121 
Dwarfness,  80,  159 
Dwarfs,  61 

Eagles,  218 

Earth,  284 

East,  E.  M.,  228 

Ecclesiastes,  204,  298 

Edison,  T.  A.,  14 

Education,  130,  131,  184,  188, 
261-262;  aesthetic  elements, 
189,  191 ;  purpose,  18 

Eels,  214 

Efficiency  requirements,  273 

Egg  and  hen,  60 

Eggs  of  mammals,  216 

Egypt,  163,  256 

Electricity,  250,  282,  288 

Elephants,  216 

Eliot,  George,  126 

Ellis,  Havelock,  223,  240 

Embryo,  57,  177,  185 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  276 

Emotions,  53,  171 

Energy,  ideas  as  a  source  of, 
19;  increased  control,  7 

Engine,  body  as,  138 

England,  abortion,  241 ;  birth- 
rate, 233;  comparative  fer- 
tility statistics,  227 

Environment,  44,  89 ;  direct  ac- 
tion, 98;  response  to,  95 

Epilepsy,  78,  169,  259 

Estabrook,  Dr.,  118,  121 

Euclid,  213 

Eugenics,  257,  292,  293 

Eupsychics,  293 

Eutechnics,  262,  292 

Eutopias,  262,  292,  293 

Evening  primrose,  96 

Evergreen  peach  trees,  no 

Evils,  24 

Evolution,  104,  265,  300;  Dar- 
win and,  30,  32;  idea  of,  27; 
individual  and,  112;  organic, 


284;  progress,  283;  recapitu- 
lation, 183 

Ewes,  nutrition,  218 

Excitability,  114-115 

Exercise,  145;  results,  99 

Experience,  profiting  by,  51 

Experiment,  188 

Experts,  21 

Exploitation  253 

Eye-colour,  73 

Eye-strain,  109 

Eyes,  defective  and  abnormal, 
95 

Ezekiel,  109 

Faber,  F.  W.,  275 

Facts,  difficulty  in  getting,  209; 

getting  at,  264 
Faith  in  science,  41 
Fall  of  man,  theological,  269 
Falling  in  love,  196 
Family,  201,  278;  average  size 

of   the   college-trained,   219; 

large,  227,  241 ;  limited  and 

unlimited,  233 
Family  histories,  114,  121,  126; 

Jesus  Christ,  128 
Fatalism,  42,  87,  127 
Fates,  the  three,  44 
Fathers,  famous,  219 
Fatigue,  8,  137,   157,  159,  165; 

industrial,  166 

Features,  minor  human,   53-54 
Feeble-mindedness,  78,  117-118, 

124,  125,  273 
Fertility,  212,  218;   civilisation 

and,  219;  England,  compara- 
tive statistics,  227;  reduction, 

causes,  220 

Filial  regression,  law  of,  81-82 
Fish  in  Australia,  252 
Fishing  in  Australia,  253 
Fish-like  stage  of  human  life, 

186 

Fiske,  John,  181 
Fitness,  211 
Flies,  13 


INDEX 


305 


Fluke-worm,  256 
Food,  102,  136,  146 
Food-canal,  136 
Food-supply,  9,  224 
Foresight,  24 
Forestry,  8 

Foster,  Sir  Michael,  146 
France,  226,  228,  235,  236 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  239 
Fraunhofer,  Joseph  von,  6 
Freedom,     278 ;      determinism 

and,  45 

Fremantle,  W.  H.,  241 
Frog,  1 86 
Fruit-fly,  94 
Fuller,  Thomas,  128 
Function,    44,    47;     formative 

role,  190 
Fundulus,  95 
Future  of  mankind,  299 

Galton,  Sir  Francis,  60,  80,  88, 

258,  299 

Geddes,  Patrick,  47-48 
Gela,  Sicily,  241 
Gemmules,  112 
Genesis,  217 
Genetics,  38 

Genius,  56,  67,  68,  114,  219 
Geologists,  12 
Germ-cells,  129 
Germ-plasm,  61 
Germany,  birth-rate,  236 
Germinal  continuity,  60 
Gestation,  176,  216 
Giard,  Prof.  A.,  34 
Gibbs,  Willard,  14 
Gifford,  Lectures  of,  120,  138 
Gill-clefts,  186 
Giraffe,  106 
Glaucoma,  78 
Gnats,  13 

God,  291,  300;  kingdom  of,  281 
Goldfish,  99 
Gold-mining,  251 
Good,  true,  beautiful,  280,  282, 

290,  291,  295 


Good  news,  171 
Good-will,  19,  200,  264 
Goodness,  296,  297 
Gout,  80,  162 
Grassi,  Battista,  35 
Great  men,  children  of,  219 
Greater  celandine,  90 
Greece,  221,  224,  289 
Green-fly,  213 
Gregory,  R.  A.,  II 
Groos,  Karl,  187 
Growing  old,  203 
Growth,  193 
Gudexnatch,  Mr.,  93 
Guillemot,  217 
Gulls,  100;  eggs  of,  92 

Habitat,  252 

Haemophilia,  80 

Hempstead,  226 

Handicaps,  135 

Hapsburg  lip,  61-62 

Hare-lip,  75 

Hark-backs,  75 

Health,  295,  296;  approximate, 
135;  biology  of,  134;  defini- 
tion, 134;  ideal,  134-135;  lack 
of  education  in  laws  of,  19; 
positive,  170 

Heape,  Walter,  198 

Heart,  143,  165;  enlarged,  109 

Hen  and  egg,  6p 

Hens,  good  laying,  57 

Heredity,  8,  37,  44;  funda- 
mental facts,  57;  other  side 
of,  127;  recent  advances  in 
the  study  of,  60;  statistical 
study,  80 

Heron,  Dr.,  238 

Higher  values,  290 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  178 

Hobhouse,  L.  T.,  25 

Hobson,  E.  W.,  12 

Hoge,  Miss,  94 

Holland,  242 

Home  life,  221 

Hookworms,  36 


INDEX 


Hope  for  the  future,  299 
Hormones,  145,  158,  194 
Horses,  248,  292-293;  wild,  176 
House-fly,  163 
Human  life,  biological  control, 

9;   science  and,  5;  see  also 

Life 

Humanities,  science  and,  20 
Huxley,  T.  H.,  297 

Idealist  and  realist,  291 

Ideals,  281,  290 

Ideas,  19;  distrust  of  new,  42; 
general,  51 

Idiosyncrasies,  56,  187 

Immunity,  13 

Intperium  in  imperio,  277 

Inbreeding,  64 

Individual,  life-cycle,  173 ;  re- 
capitulation of  racial  evolu- 
tion, 183 

Individual  modifications,  trans- 
missibility,  62 

Individual  peculiarities,  56 

Individuality,  45 

Individuation,  217 

Industrial  age,  221 

Industrial  fatigue,  166 

Industrialism,  287 

Inert,  246 

Infancy,  birth-rate  and  death- 
rate,  227 ;  fragility,  181 ;  high 
mortality,  182 

Infanticide,  241,  260;  scientific, 
272 

Infection  before  birth,  77 

Inference,  power  of,  51 

Inferiority,  294 

Inflammation,  270 

Inge,  W.  R.,  221,  242,  288 

Inheritance,  blending,  68;  dif- 
ferent modes,  64,  68;  disease 
and,  76;  elements,  49;  Men- 
delian,  69 ;  minor  features, 
53-54;  our  natural,  44;  re- 
versionary, 75 

Inner  life,  20,  153 


Inorganic  and  organic,  138 

Inorganic  sphere,  245 

Inquisitions,  259 

Insanity,  117,  118 

Instincts,  in  man,  52,  169;  in- 
telligence and,  270;  trans- 
forming, 53 

Institutions,  278 

Integration,  174 

Integrative  action,  147 

Intelligence,  149;  instinct  and, 
270 

Intestines,  136-137 

Inventors,  14 

Irrigation,  250-251 

Jamaica,  253 

James,    William,    on    ideas    as 

source  of  energy,  19 
Jesus  Christ,  genealogy,  128 
Johannesburg,  164 
Joints,  143 
Jones,  Wood,  181 
Joy,  188,  189,  208 
Jukes  family,  121,  273 

Keeble,  Francis,  228 

Keith,  Arthur,  138 

Kelvin,  Lord,  n 

Khartoum,  35 

Kingdom  of  God,  281 

Kingdom  of  man,  245,  286 

Knowledge,  263,  264;  Bacon 
on,  15,  16,  17,  18,  31 ;  non- 
utilisation,  21 ;  see  also 
Science 

Knox,  John,  87 

Lamarck,  J.  B.,  98 
Lampreys,  176,  214 
Lankester,  Sir  E.  R.,  268 
Lausanne,  34 

Laveran,  C.  L.  A.,  35,  256 
Lavoisier,  13 

Lead-poisoning,  164,  169,  175 
Legs,  extra,  94-95 
Leiper,  R.  T.,  163,  257 


INDEX 


307 


Licentiousness,  124,  273 

Life,  cyclical  development,  173 ; 
different  forms  of  life-curve, 
173;  lengthening,  177 

Life-cycle,  individual,  173 

Like  producing  like,  59 

Lilly,  W.  S.,  243 

Linkages,  74,  266,  274 

Literature,  275 

Liver-rot,  256 

Locusts  in  South  Africa,  34 

Loeb,  Jacques,  95 

Lombroso,  Cesare,  120 

London,  birth-rate,  238 

Long  life,  177 

Lotze,  R.  H.,  284-285 

Love,  195 ;  definition,  197 ;  fall- 
ing in  love,  196;  normal,  199 

Lovers,  200 

Luidia,  213 

Lungs,  190 

Lyly,  John,  87 

Lymnaeus,  90,  256 

Maartens,  Maarten,  24 

MacDougal,  D.  T.,  96 

Malaria,  9,  162,  256;  cause,  35 

Malthus,  224,  254 

Mammalian  motherhood,  216 

Mammals,  285 

Man,  28,  257,  258;  ascent  of, 
287  ;  betterment,  31,  33  ;  king- 
dom of,  245,  286;  origin,  28 

Marconi,  Guglielmo,  14 

Marriage,  68,  117,  197,  231, 
259;  childless,  219-220;  deaf- 
mutes,  271 ;  happy,  198 ;  late 
or  early,  224 ;  laws,  201 ;  ma- 
terialistic views,  244 

Marriage  certificates,  126 

Marshall,  Milnes,  183 

Marsupials,  216 

Materialism,  244,  248 

Maternal  instinct,  199 

Maternity,  232 

Mathematics,  12 

Maturity,  174 


Mayflies,  175 

Melania,  257 

Members  and  body,  157 

Mendel,  Gregor,  61,  70,  80,  85 

Mendelian  characters,  54,  61 

Mendelian  inheritance,  69 

Mendelism,  37;  crossing  of 
pure-bred  organism,  69 ; 
value,  85 

Mental  disturbances,  116-117 

Mental  faculties,  113 

Mental  instability,  259 

Mental  peculiarities,  55 

Meredith,  George,  197 

Metabolism,  160,  173,  269 

Metallurgy,  12 

Metchnikoff,  Elie,  135,  207 

Mice,  hybrids,  69 

Microbes,  162 

Microbic  diseases,  261 

Mill,  James,  225 

Millard,  C.  K.,  226,  227,  233 

Mind,  influence  on  body,  170 

Mind-body,  145,  153,  190,  244 

Minnow-embryos,  95 

Misery,  social,  289 

Moderation,  207,  208 

Modifications,  definition,  101 ; 
individual  acquired,  62;  indi- 
vidually acquired,  and  their 
transmissibility,  97 ;  kinds  dis- 
tinguished, 102;  Lamarckian 
view  of  transmission,  104; 
misunderstanding,  102 ;  trans- 
mission, question  of,  104; 
why  not  transmitted?  112 

Mongoose,  2-53 

Monogamy,  201,  278;  among 
birds,  215 

Montaigne,  M.  E.,  175 

Moral  therapeutics,  279 

Moral  values  in  life,  244 

Morgan,  T.  H.,  89,  93,  94 

Mosquitoes,  malaria  and,  35, 
163,  256;  yellow  fever  and, 
36 

Mother  and  child,  179 


308 


INDEX 


Motherhood,  179,  181 ;  mam- 
mals, 216 

Motor-cycle,  139 

Mott,  F.  W.,  80,  117 

Muddling  through,  19,  21,  41, 
196 

Mulattoes,  55,  68 

Muscle-engine,  141 

Mussel-beds,  255 

Mutations,  63,  101 

Myers,  J.  L.,  221 

Myxoedema,  159 

Natural  selection,  183,  259,  265, 
294 

Nature,  definition,  88;  follow- 
ing nature,  295-296;  man 
and,  268;  nurture  and,  64, 
84,  86;  wild,  and  disease, 
168 

Neanderthal  man,  297 

Nematodes,  36 

Nerve-cells,  148,  154,  156,  178 

Nerve-fibres,  148 

Nerves,  144-145,  M7 

Nervous  disposition,  118 

Nervous  instability,  162 

Nervous  system,  146 

Nervous  type,  115 

Neurasthenia,  117,  165 

Neuroglia,  149 

Neurons,  148 

Newsholme,  Arthur,  233 

Newt,  76 

Newton,  Isaac,  183 

Niagara,  288 

Night-blindness,  72,  80,  86 

Nilsson's  Institute,  56 

Nitrogen,  fixation,  8 

Notchord,  184 

Nougaret,  Jean,  72,  86 

Novelties,  29,  129;  origin,  65 

Nurture,  bad  and  good,  132; 
definition,  88 ;  depreciation 
of  importance,  90;  develop- 
ment and,  88;  evolution  of, 
132;  influence  of,  86;  limits 


to  the  potency  of  125; 
nature  and,  64,  84,  86; 
of  the  higher  faculties, 
113;  pre-natal,  179;  quality, 
130 

Obesity,  80 

Occupational  diseases,  164 

Occupations,  108 

Ogneff,  Mr.,  99 

Old  age.    See  Age 

Old  boy,  175 

Old  maids,  53 

Oliver,  F.  W.,  9 

Oliver,  Sir  Thomas,  169 

Opossum,  176,  216 

Oranges,  56 

Organic  realm,  246 

Organisation,  24 

Organisms,  138;  man's  control, 

251 ;  unity  of,  190 
Oryzivora,  212 
Osier,  Sir  William,  90 
Ovum,  57,  58 
Oysters,  213 

Pain,  137 

Panama  Canal,  13,  35 

Pancreas,  158 

Pattern  et  circences,  289 

Panza,  Sancho,  200 

Parasites,  163 

Parental  affection,  197 

Parental  care,  215 

Parenthood,  180,  259 

Parker,  G.  H.,  155,  259 

Parthenogenesis,  58 

Pasteur,   Louis,   12;   biological 

control  of  life,  32 
Paul  the  Apostle,  157,  242 
Pavlov,  Ivan  P.,  171 
Peach  trees,  parable,  no 
Pearl,  Raymond,  56-57 
Pearson,  Karl,  80-8 1,  82,  83,  90, 

267 

Peas,  crossing,  70,  72 
Pepper  moth,  212 


INDEX 


309 


Peripatus,  176,  214 

Personality,  151,  153 

Pfliiger,  E.  F.  W.,  208 

Phagocytes,  164 

Philosophy,  281 

Phlegmatic  type,  115 

Phthisis,  267 

Physical  forces,  mastery  of, 
249 

Physicists,  17 

Placenta,  216 

Planaria,  97 

Plant  diseases,  168 

Plant  hybrids,  69 

Plants,  new  cultivated,  255 

Plasmodium,  35 

Plato,  20,  241,  260,  294 

Play,  187 

Pleasure,  188,  189 

Poisons,  67,  107,  163,  167,  207 

Polydactylism,  62,  80 

Population,  equilibrium,  221 ; 
fluctuations,  220 ;  increase, 
222;  increase  of  the  world, 
228 ;  over-population  cry, 
224;  problems,  209 

Poultry,  100 

Practical  problems,  16 

Predisposition,  162,  165;  in- 
heritance of,  77 

Pregnancy,  180 

Primrose,  Chinese,  93,  103 

Progress,  7;  critique  of,  293; 
definition,  292 ;  reality  of, 
288;  scepticism  as  to,  288, 
289;  what  it  means,  283 

Proletariat,  229 

Prosperity,  223 

Proteus  (newt),  76 

Protozoa,  163 

Psycho-biology,  9 

Punishment,  120 

Punnett,  R.  C,  131,  211,  265 

Pure  science,  10,  13,  14 

Pure-breds,  64 

Purgation  of  the  State,  260, 
294 


Rabbits,  69,  70,  75,  91,  252 
Race-suicide,  235,  240 
Ramsay,   Sir   William,   6,  249, 

295 

Ranunculus  aquatilis,  98 
Rats,  white,  99 
Realist  and  idealist,  291 
Recapitulation,  183 
Reed,  Walter,  36 
Reflexes,  149 

Registration  of  gains,  275,  285 
Regression,  82;  filial,  81-82 
Regulative  system,  157 
Rejuvenescence,  206 
Reliability,  274 

Representative  government,  278 
Reproduction,  260 ;  economised, 

214 

Reptiles,  251,  285 
Reserve,  196 
Rest,  270 

Reversionary  inheritance,  75 
Rheumatism,  76 
Rhondda,  Lord,  8 
Rhondha  Valley,  238 
Rice,  164,  252 
Rice-bird,  212 
Rickets,  77,  109,  164 
Rockefeller  Foundation,  37 
Ross,  Sir  Ronald,  35,  256 
Rotation  of  crops,  255 
Rovers,  114,  121 
Roving  impulse,  55 
Rowland,  H.  A.,  17 
Ruskin,  John,  22 
Russell,  Bertrand,  202 

Sabbath,  167 

St.  Anthony,  53 

Saving  life,  271 

Scepticism,  288,  289 

School,  185,  188 

Science,   advances,    value,   23; 

applied,    14;    as   torch,   263; 

chief  end,  22;  definition,  4; 

faith  in,  22,  41 ;  for  its  own 

sake,  10,  13;  higher  services 


INDEX 


to  human  life,  18;  human 
life  and,  5;  inner  life  and, 
20 ;  what  is  meant  by,  4 ;  see 
also  Knowledge 

Sciences,  differences  in  devel- 
opment, 5 

Scientific,  5 

Scientific  inquisitiveness,  255 

Scientific  tendency,  3 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  219 

Sea-mat,  13 

Sea-urchins,  92 

Secretin,  158 

Segregation,  272 

Selection,  259-260;  biological 
theory,  265;  impulses,  52;  in 
mankind,  266;  rational  and 
social,  273 

Senescence,  174,  204 

Senility,  204 

Separation,  marriage,  201 

Serum  therapeutics,  9 

Sex,  120;  antagonism,  198;  dim 
experiences  in  childhood, 
192;  instincts,  270;  instruc- 
tion, 195-196;  intergrades, 
200;  maturity,  194,  195;  the- 
ory of  fundamental  differ- 
ence, 173;  waning  of  im- 
pulse, 203 

Shaw,  Bernard,  199 

Sheep,  56,  107,  218,  256 

Sherrington,  C.  S.,  147 

Shoreditch,  226,  238 

Short-sightedness,  106 

Sifting  process,  266 

Silkworm  disease,  33 

Six  fingers,  62 

Sleep,  155 

Sleeping  sickness,  36,  162 

Sleeplessness,  137,  270 

Smallpox,  169 

Smith,  William,  12 

Snails,  256;  fresh-water,  99 

Snakes,  251,  285 

Sneezing,  150 

Social  heritage,  189,  274 


Social  ideals,  257 

Social  progress,  pre-conditions, 
292 

Social  selection,  277 

Sociosphere,  245,  247 

Sorby,  H.  C,  12 

Sour  grapes,  eating,  109 

South  Africa,  locusts,  34 

Sparrows,  252 

Sparta,  260 

Spawning  solution,  213 

Speech,  power  of,  51 

Spencer,  Herbert,  104,  106,  180, 
225 ;  on  individuation  and 
genesis,  217;  on  science,  15; 
on  the  dilemma  of  civilisa- 
tion, 271 

Sperm,  57,  58 

Spinal  cord,  147 

Spirit,  280 

Sports,  29 

Star-fish,  213 

Starling,  E.  H.,  158 

Stegotnyia  fasciata,  36 

Sterilisation,  272 

Stimuli,  liberating,  184,  189 

Stockard,  Mr.,  95 

Stoicism,-  a  new,  295 

Stream-system,  154 

Struggle  for  existence,  211,  229 

Superstition,  23 

Survival,  211,  214,  268 

Svaloy,  Sweden,  56 

Symbiosis,  96,  180 

Sympathetic  system,  147 

Syphilis,  77,  162,  169,  179,  207 

Tadpoles,  93 
Tapeworm,  211,  218 
Teeth,  93,  136 
Temperaments,  55 
Tennyson,  Alfred,  152,  219 
Tetanus,  9,  162 
Theory,  14 

Things,  control  of,  249 
Thomson,  Mary  H.,  130 
Thomson,  Prof.  William,  12 


INDEX 


Thriftless  class,  237 
Thrills,  189 
Thyroid  extracts,  159 
Thyroid    gland,    39,    121,    145, 

158 

Ticks,  13,  253 
Tides,  7 
Transmission   of   modification. 

See  Modifications 
Trawling,  254,  279 
Trees,  255 
Trotter,  Dr.  W.,  4 
True,  beautiful,  and  good,  280, 

282,  290,  291,  295 
Truth,  22,  295,  296 
Trypanosoma  evansi,  36 
Tsetse  fly,  36,  163 
Tuberculosis,  77,  162 
Turgenev,  Ivan,  42 
Typhoid  fever,  162,  163,  169 

Understanding,  as  chief  end  of 
science,  10 

Unit-characters,  54,  61 

United  States,  average  size  of 
family,  239;  population  in- 
crease, 229 

Utilitarianism,  9 

Utility,  15,  16,  18 

Variability,  46,  269 
Variations,  63,  101 
Venereal  diseases,  279 
Vice,  20 
Vigour,  262 
Virgin  birth,  58 
Vitamines,  79 


Walking,  139 
War,  278 

Warm-bloodedness,  51 
Wart-hog,  in 
Warts,  98 

Wastage,  213-214,  250,  253 
Waste-products,  146,  160,  167 
Water  buttercups,  98 
Weaklings,  169,  271,  272,  293 
Webb,  Sidney,  233 
Weismann,  August,  60 
Wells,  H.  G.,  196 
Wesley,  John,  219 
Wheat,  Mendelian  methods  ap- 
plied to,  37 
Whitehead,  A.  N.,  11 
Whitman,  Walt,  269 
Wild  animals,  168 
Wilson,  E.  B.,  129 
Wilson,  James,  on  Mendelism, 

37 

Wind,  7 

Wireless  telegraphy,  12 
Wordsworth,  William,  171 
Work,  play  as  a  form  of,  188; 

satisfaction  in,  298 
Worms,    bilharzia,    163;    Pla- 

narian,  97,  175 
Worry,  167 
Wren,  217 

Yellow  fever,  36 

Young,  art  of  remaining,  203, 

207 
Youth,  174 

Zoologists,  13 
Zulus,  51 


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